Perl

Get a Directory Listing as XML

Demonstrates the Chilkat Ftp2.GetXmlDirListing method, which retrieves a directory listing and returns the parsed entries as an XML document rooted at <remoteDir>, with a <file> element per entry. The only argument is the listing pattern; an empty string lists the current directory.

Tip: Code to parse the returned XML can be generated at Chilkat Tools.

Background: This is the parse-friendly listing: Chilkat has already interpreted the server's raw LIST output — whatever its format — into consistent XML with names, sizes, dates, and types as elements. That spares you from writing format-specific parsers and is the right choice when a program, rather than a person, consumes the listing. Load the result into a Chilkat.Xml object to iterate the entries.

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Chilkat2 Perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Chilkat2;

# Demonstrates the Ftp2.GetXmlDirListing method, which returns a directory listing as a parsed
# XML document.  The only argument is the listing pattern; an empty string lists the current
# remote directory.

my $ftp = Chilkat2::Ftp2->new;

$ftp->Hostname('ftp.example.com');
$ftp->Username('myFtpLogin');

# 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');

my $success = $ftp->Connect();
if (!$success) {
    print $ftp->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

$success = $ftp->ChangeRemoteDir('public_html');
if (!$success) {
    print $ftp->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

# The XML is rooted at <remoteDir>, with <file> elements for each entry.  This is easier to
# parse programmatically than the raw text listing.
my $xml = $ftp->GetXmlDirListing('*.html');
if (!$ftp->LastMethodSuccess) {
    print $ftp->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

print $xml, "\n";

# The XML can be loaded into a Chilkat.Xml object for further processing.

$success = $ftp->Disconnect();
if (!$success) {
    print $ftp->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}