Lua

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.

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Lua

local chilkat = require("chilkat")

local ftp = chilkat.Ftp2.new()

ftp.hostname = "ftp.example.com"
ftp.username = "myFtpLogin"

-- AllowMlsd (default true) requests machine-readable MLSD listings when the server advertises
-- support.  MLSD is preferred because its format is standardized.
ftp.allow_mlsd = true

-- PreferNlst (default false) chooses NLST over LIST when a legacy listing is needed and MLSD is
-- unavailable.  NLST returns only names.
ftp.prefer_nlst = false

-- ListOption is appended literally to a legacy LIST command; "-a" sends "LIST -a" to include
-- hidden files on Unix servers.
ftp.list_option = "-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.
ftp.password = "myPassword"

local success = ftp:connect()
if not success then
    print(ftp.last_error_text)
    return
end

local n = ftp:get_dir_count()
print("Entries: " .. n)

success = ftp:disconnect()
if not success then
    print(ftp.last_error_text)
    return
end