Visual FoxPro

Control How FTP Directory Listings Are Requested

Demonstrates the AllowMlsd, PreferNlst, and ListOption properties, which control which listing command Chilkat uses and what options it passes.

Background: FTP has three listing commands with different trade-offs. MLSD is machine-readable and standardized, so AllowMlsd (on by default) prefers it when the server supports it. When it must fall back to the legacy commands, PreferNlst chooses names-only NLST over the fuller LIST, and ListOption appends flags such as -a (to include hidden files) literally to LIST. Together they adapt listing to a particular server's capabilities and conventions.

Chilkat Visual FoxPro Downloads

Download Chilkat for Visual FoxPro

Visual FoxPro

LOCAL lnSuccess
LOCAL loFtp
LOCAL n

lnSuccess = 0

loFtp = CreateObject('Chilkat.Ftp2')

loFtp.Hostname = "ftp.example.com"
loFtp.Username = "myFtpLogin"

*  AllowMlsd (default 1) requests machine-readable MLSD listings when the server advertises
*  support.  MLSD is preferred because its format is standardized.
loFtp.AllowMlsd = 1

*  PreferNlst (default 0) chooses NLST over LIST when a legacy listing is needed and MLSD is
*  unavailable.  NLST returns only names.
loFtp.PreferNlst = 0

*  ListOption is appended literally to a legacy LIST command; "-a" sends "LIST -a" to include
*  hidden files on Unix servers.
loFtp.ListOption = "-a"

*  Normally you would not hard-code the password in source.  You should instead obtain it
*  from an interactive prompt, environment variable, or a secrets vault.
loFtp.Password = "myPassword"

lnSuccess = loFtp.Connect()
IF (lnSuccess = 0) THEN
    ? loFtp.LastErrorText
    RELEASE loFtp
    CANCEL
ENDIF

n = loFtp.GetDirCount()
? "Entries: " + STR(n)

lnSuccess = loFtp.Disconnect()
IF (lnSuccess = 0) THEN
    ? loFtp.LastErrorText
    RELEASE loFtp
    CANCEL
ENDIF

RELEASE loFtp