Net::FTP
Section: User Contributed Perl Documentation
(3)
Updated: perl 5.004, patch 55
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NAME
Net::FTP - FTP Client class
SYNOPSIS
use Net::FTP;
$ftp = Net::FTP->new("some.host.name");
$ftp->login("anonymous","me@here.there");
$ftp->cwd("/pub");
$ftp->get("that.file");
$ftp->quit;
DESCRIPTION
Net::FTP is a class implementing a simple FTP client in Perl as
described in RFC959. It provides wrappers for a subset of the RFC959
commands.
OVERVIEW
FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It is a way of transferring
files between networked machines. The protocol defines a client
(whose commands are provided by this module) and a server (not
implemented in this module). Communication is always initiated by the
client, and the server responds with a message and a status code (and
sometimes with data).
The FTP protocol allows files to be sent to or fetched from the
server. Each transfer involves a local file (on the client) and a
remote file (on the server). In this module, the same file name
will be used for both local and remote if only one is specified. This
means that transferring remote file /path/to/file will try to put
that file in /path/to/file locally, unless you specify a local file
name.
The protocol also defines several standard translations which the
file can undergo during transfer. These are ASCII, EBCDIC, binary,
and byte. ASCII is the default type, and indicates that the sender of
files will translate the ends of lines to a standard representation
which the receiver will then translate back into their local
representation. EBCDIC indicates the file being transferred is in
EBCDIC format. Binary (also known as image) format sends the data as
a contiguous bit stream. Byte format transfers the data as bytes, the
values of which remain the same regardless of differences in byte size
between the two machines (in theory - in practice you should only use
this if you really know what you're doing).
CONSTRUCTOR
- new (HOST [,OPTIONS])
-
This is the constructor for a new Net::FTP object. HOST is the
name of the remote host to which a FTP connection is required.
OPTIONS are passed in a hash like fashion, using key and value pairs.
Possible options are:
Firewall - The name of a machine which acts as a FTP firewall. This can be
overridden by an environment variable FTP_FIREWALL. If specified, and the
given host cannot be directly connected to, then the
connection is made to the firewall machine and the string @hostname is
appended to the login identifier. This kind of setup is also refered to
as a ftp proxy.
Port - The port number to connect to on the remote machine for the
FTP connection
Timeout - Set a timeout value (defaults to 120)
Debug - debug level (see the debug method in the Net::Cmd manpage)
Passive - If set to true then all data transfers will be done using
passive mode. This is required for some dumb servers, and some
firewall configurations. This can also be set by the environment
variable FTP_PASSIVE.
METHODS
Unless otherwise stated all methods return either a true or false
value, with true meaning that the operation was a success. When a method
states that it returns a value, failure will be returned as undef or an
empty list.
- login ([LOGIN [,PASSWORD [, ACCOUNT] ] ])
-
Log into the remote FTP server with the given login information. If
no arguments are given then the Net::FTP uses the Net::Netrc
package to lookup the login information for the connected host.
If no information is found then a login of anonymous is used.
If no password is given and the login is anonymous then the users
Email address will be used for a password.
If the connection is via a firewall then the authorize method will
be called with no arguments.
- authorize ( [AUTH [, RESP]])
-
This is a protocol used by some firewall ftp proxies. It is used
to authorise the user to send data out. If both arguments are not specified
then authorize uses Net::Netrc to do a lookup.
- type (TYPE [, ARGS])
-
This method will send the TYPE command to the remote FTP server
to change the type of data transfer. The return value is the previous
value.
- ascii ([ARGS]) binary([ARGS]) ebcdic([ARGS]) byte([ARGS])
-
Synonyms for type with the first arguments set correctly
NOTE ebcdic and byte are not fully supported.
- rename ( OLDNAME, NEWNAME )
-
Rename a file on the remote FTP server from OLDNAME to NEWNAME. This
is done by sending the RNFR and RNTO commands.
- delete ( FILENAME )
-
Send a request to the server to delete FILENAME.
- cwd ( [ DIR ] )
-
Attempt to change directory to the directory given in $dir. If
$dir is "..", the FTP CDUP command is used to attempt to
move up one directory. If no directory is given then an attempt is made
to change the directory to the root directory.
- cdup ()
-
Change directory to the parent of the current directory.
- pwd ()
-
Returns the full pathname of the current directory.
- rmdir ( DIR )
-
Remove the directory with the name DIR.
- mkdir ( DIR [, RECURSE ])
-
Create a new directory with the name DIR. If RECURSE is true then
mkdir will attempt to create all the directories in the given path.
Returns the full pathname to the new directory.
- ls ( [ DIR ] )
-
Get a directory listing of DIR, or the current directory.
In an array context, returns a list of lines returned from the server. In
a scalar context, returns a reference to a list.
- dir ( [ DIR ] )
-
Get a directory listing of DIR, or the current directory in long format.
In an array context, returns a list of lines returned from the server. In
a scalar context, returns a reference to a list.
- get ( REMOTE_FILE [, LOCAL_FILE [, WHERE]] )
-
Get REMOTE_FILE from the server and store locally. LOCAL_FILE may be
a filename or a filehandle. If not specified the the file will be stored in
the current directory with the same leafname as the remote file.
If WHERE is given then the first WHERE bytes of the file will
not be transfered, and the remaining bytes will be appended to
the local file if it already exists.
Returns LOCAL_FILE, or the generated local file name if LOCAL_FILE
is not given.
- put ( LOCAL_FILE [, REMOTE_FILE ] )
-
Put a file on the remote server. LOCAL_FILE may be a name or a filehandle.
If LOCAL_FILE is a filehandle then REMOTE_FILE must be specified. If
REMOTE_FILE is not specified then the file will be stored in the current
directory with the same leafname as LOCAL_FILE.
Returns REMOTE_FILE, or the generated remote filename if REMOTE_FILE
is not given.
NOTE: If for some reason the transfer does not complete and an error is
returned then the contents that had been transfered will not be remove
automatically.
- put_unique ( LOCAL_FILE [, REMOTE_FILE ] )
-
Same as put but uses the STOU command.
Returns the name of the file on the server.
- append ( LOCAL_FILE [, REMOTE_FILE ] )
-
Same as put but appends to the file on the remote server.
Returns REMOTE_FILE, or the generated remote filename if REMOTE_FILE
is not given.
- unique_name ()
-
Returns the name of the last file stored on the server using the
STOU command.
- mdtm ( FILE )
-
Returns the modification time of the given file
- size ( FILE )
-
Returns the size in bytes for the given file as stored on the remote server.
NOTE: The size reported is the size of the stored file on the remote server.
If the file is subsequently transfered from the server in ASCII mode
and the remote server and local machine have different ideas about
``End Of Line'' then the size of file on the local machine after transfer
may be different.
- supported ( CMD )
-
Returns TRUE if the remote server supports the given command.
The following methods can return different results depending on
how they are called. If the user explicitly calls either
of the pasv or port methods then these methods will
return a true or false value. If the user does not
call either of these methods then the result will be a
reference to a Net::FTP::dataconn based object.
- nlst ( [ DIR ] )
-
Send a NLST command to the server, with an optional parameter.
- list ( [ DIR ] )
-
Same as nlst but using the LIST command
- retr ( FILE )
-
Begin the retrieval of a file called FILE from the remote server.
- stor ( FILE )
-
Tell the server that you wish to store a file. FILE is the
name of the new file that should be created.
- stou ( FILE )
-
Same as stor but using the STOU command. The name of the unique
file which was created on the server will be available via the unique_name
method after the data connection has been closed.
- appe ( FILE )
-
Tell the server that we want to append some data to the end of a file
called FILE. If this file does not exist then create it.
If for some reason you want to have complete control over the data connection,
this includes generating it and calling the response method when required,
then the user can use these methods to do so.
However calling these methods only affects the use of the methods above that
can return a data connection. They have no effect on methods get, put,
put_unique and those that do not require data connections.
- port ( [ PORT ] )
-
Send a PORT command to the server. If PORT is specified then it is sent
to the server. If not the a listen socket is created and the correct information
sent to the server.
- pasv ()
-
Tell the server to go into passive mode. Returns the text that represents the
port on which the server is listening, this text is in a suitable form to
sent to another ftp server using the port method.
The following methods can be used to transfer files between two remote
servers, providing that these two servers can connect directly to each other.
- pasv_xfer ( SRC_FILE, DEST_SERVER [, DEST_FILE ] )
-
This method will do a file transfer between two remote ftp servers. If
DEST_FILE is omitted then the leaf name of SRC_FILE will be used.
- pasv_xfer_unique ( SRC_FILE, DEST_SERVER [, DEST_FILE ] )
-
Like pasv_xfer but the file is stored on the remote server using
the STOU command.
- pasv_wait ( NON_PASV_SERVER )
-
This method can be used to wait for a transfer to complete between a passive
server and a non-passive server. The method should be called on the passive
server with the Net::FTP object for the non-passive server passed as an
argument.
- abort ()
-
Abort the current data transfer.
- quit ()
-
Send the QUIT command to the remote FTP server and close the socket connection.
Methods for the adventurous
Net::FTP inherits from Net::Cmd so methods defined in Net::Cmd may
be used to send commands to the remote FTP server.
- quot (CMD [,ARGS])
-
Send a command, that Net::FTP does not directly support, to the remote
server and wait for a response.
Returns most significant digit of the response code.
WARNING This call should only be used on commands that do not require
data connections. Misuse of this method can hang the connection.
THE dataconn CLASS
Some of the methods defined in Net::FTP return an object which will
be derived from this class.The dataconn class itself is derived from
the IO::Socket::INET class, so any normal IO operations can be performed.
However the following methods are defined in the dataconn class and IO should
be performed using these.
- read ( BUFFER, SIZE [, TIMEOUT ] )
-
Read SIZE bytes of data from the server and place it into BUFFER, also
performing any <CRLF> translation necessary. TIMEOUT is optional, if not
given the the timeout value from the command connection will be used.
Returns the number of bytes read before any <CRLF> translation.
- write ( BUFFER, SIZE [, TIMEOUT ] )
-
Write SIZE bytes of data from BUFFER to the server, also
performing any <CRLF> translation necessary. TIMEOUT is optional, if not
given the the timeout value from the command connection will be used.
Returns the number of bytes written before any <CRLF> translation.
- abort ()
-
Abort the current data transfer.
- close ()
-
Close the data connection and get a response from the FTP server. Returns
true if the connection was closed successfully and the first digit of
the response from the server was a `2'.
UNIMPLEMENTED
The following RFC959 commands have not been implemented:
- ALLO
-
Allocates storage for the file to be transferred.
- SMNT
-
Mount a different file system structure without changing login or
accounting information.
- HELP
-
Ask the server for ``helpful information'' (that's what the RFC says) on
the commands it accepts.
- MODE
-
Specifies transfer mode (stream, block or compressed) for file to be
transferred.
- SITE
-
Request remote server site parameters.
- SYST
-
Request remote server system identification.
- STAT
-
Request remote server status.
- STRU
-
Specifies file structure for file to be transferred.
- REIN
-
Reinitialize the connection, flushing all I/O and account information.
REPORTING BUGS
When reporting bugs/problems please include as much information as possible.
It may be difficult for me to reproduce the problem as almost every setup
is different.
A small script which yields the problem will probably be of help. It would
also be useful if this script was run with the extra options Debug = 1>
passed to the constructor, and the output sent with the bug report. If you
cannot include a small script then please include a Debug trace from a
run of your program which does yield the problem.
AUTHOR
Graham Barr <gbarr@pobox.com>
SEE ALSO
the Net::Netrc manpage
the Net::Cmd manpage
ftp(1), ftpd(8), RFC 959
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/htbin/rfc/rfc959.html
CREDITS
Henry Gabryjelski <henryg@WPI.EDU> - for the suggestion of creating directories
recursively.
Nathan Torkington <gnat@frii.com> - for some input on the documentation.
Roderick Schertler <roderick@gate.net> - for various inputs
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1995-1997 Graham Barr. All rights reserved.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- OVERVIEW
-
- CONSTRUCTOR
-
- METHODS
-
- Methods for the adventurous
-
- THE dataconn CLASS
-
- UNIMPLEMENTED
-
- REPORTING BUGS
-
- AUTHOR
-
- SEE ALSO
-
- CREDITS
-
- COPYRIGHT
-
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Time: 23:58:14 GMT, February 15, 2023