OK, with Paul Brannan’s help I’ve realized what’s going on here.
There’s nothing wrong with the way I’m reading, nor with pty.
(By the way: It’s pty I’m playing with, not ftp, or I would just
use net/ftp.)
The output I’m getting is what the program is actually sending.
Apparently it redraws the line for each character typed.
I’ve confirmed this at the command line by teeing the output
to a file and doing od -c on it.
This behavior seems strange to me, can anyone rationalize? I would
think it would be easier just to echo one char at a time.
Hal