CODEWITHSUNDEEP
utf-8character-encodingftpprotocolsfile-transfer
mohangraj
mohangraj

Reputation: 11044

Does FTP support UTF Character Set?

If I want to transfer some file from one system to another system which contains non-English characters. So does FTP support UTF character set ?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 18547

Answers (2)

Alastair McCormack
Alastair McCormack

Reputation: 27714

What we're talking about is filename Unicode support. To transfer a file which is UTF-8 encoded, use "binary" mode.

Although RFC 2640 extended the original FTP specification to support non-ASCII filenames, not every FTP server or FTP client supports it.

You can check your server implementation by running the following on the client's command terminal:

FEAT

and check for:

UTF8

in the response. If not, you will have to guess the 8 bit encoding of the remote side or convert your filename to ascii.

Upvotes: 7

TharsDimitris
TharsDimitris

Reputation: 154

if you are talking about the FTP protocol it seems that it is supported.

The FTP protocol is specified in RFC 959, which was published in 1985. The FTP protocol is designed on top of the original Telnet protocol, which is specified in RFC 854. The relevant sections of the Telnet specification regarding FTP are those covering the Network Virtual Terminal (NVT). According to RFC 854, the NVT requires the use of (7-bit) ASCII as the character set. Use of any other character set requires explicit negotiation. This character set only contains 127 different characters: English letters and numbers, punctuation characters and a few control characters. Accented letters, umlauts or other scripts are not contained in the ASCII character set. In order to support non-English characters, the FTP specifications were extended in 1999 in RFC 2640. This extension requires the use of UTF-8 as the character set. This character set is a strict superset of ASCII, every valid ASCII character is also the same character in UTF-8. The UTF-8 character set can display any valid Unicode character. That includes umlauts, accented letters and also different scripts. This extension is fully backwards compatible with RFC 959. As long as you're using only English characters, it doesn't matter if the software you are using supports RFC 2640 or not. However, if you use non-English characters without using RFC 2640 compatible software, there will be problems--problems which are entirely self-made by not obeying the specifications.

you can read more here

Upvotes: 3

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