Chapter 31 FTPClient

tuckerssb · July 31st, 2009, 02:29 PM

The FTPClient example in chapter 31 has 2 functions that call getDirectoryEntries(), GetDirectories() and GetFiles.

Each supplies a "directoryattribute" character which helps the called function distinguish FTP listing entries as either directories ("d") or files ("-").

Comments indicate that each line of the FTP directory listings received by the called function will either begin with "dx-xr-xr-x" or "-x-xr-xr-x" respectively. If the called function GetDirectoryEntries receives a directoryattribute of "d" from the calling function, it will return only entries containing dx-xr...., and if the received directoryattribute is "-", it will only return those directory entry lines beginning -x-xr...

Using VS2008 and a XP based FTP server I built the test example and I had some difficulty until I put some console.writelines in and found that the XP FTP server does not return the directory entries in the specified format. For a root directory that has one sub-directory and one text file, my XP based FTP server returns

07-30-09 04:06PM <DIR> New Folder
07-31-09 02:20PM 35 New Text Document.txt

Is this a .Net 2 vs 3.5 thing, or is it a Microsoft vs the world FTP thing?

I tested this against a Windows 2000 SP4 Server and got the same format returned.

If it is an MS thing then the app I am building will have to test for both format types.

Tom

ksharkey · August 3rd, 2009, 06:31 PM

Hi Tom,

Offhand, I'd think it was the server not sending back the right data, as that code worked with the Server 2003 FTP server (using 3.5) as well as a couple of Unix servers I tested. Let me install the XP server and try it again here.

UPDATED: OOOOkay, time to eat my words. Or something. Even the Unix boxes I'm connecting to are now returning something different now:

Code:

<HEAD>
<TITLE>FTP directory: /</TITLE>
<BASE HREF="ftp://anonymous:me@here.comom@ftp.cc.umanitoba.ca/">
</HEAD>
<H1>Current directory is /</H1>
<PRE>
<HR>
Please read the file NOTICE
230-  it was last modified on Fri May 14 18:54:06 1993 - 5921 days ago
<HR>
[DIRECTORY]  <A HREF="E/">E</A>. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    [Feb 19 19:27]
[FILE]       <A HREF="NOTICE">NOTICE</A> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    [May 14  1993]    515B
[FILE]       <A HREF="SITEINFO.AFA">SITEINFO.AFA</A> . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    [Dec 15  1993]      1K

...

Which of course is different still from what you were seeing. Joyous.

Do you get the same format on your 2000 server, or the format you see on your XP box?

ksharkey · August 3rd, 2009, 07:28 PM

Hi Tom,

Something for you or your admin to check on the config of the FTP service. Is the format set to Unix-style or MS-DOS-style? (On Home Directory tab)