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listmatlabcurlftp
Josiah
Josiah

Reputation: 654

List files on ftp using cURL in Matlab

I'm trying to get a directory listing of files on an ftp server using cURL commands within Matlab. Currently I'm trying something like:

[s,w] = dos('curl "ftp://name:password@ftpurl/directory/"');

which correctly gets the data and stores it in the variable w.

To get a list of the files in that directory I could try to parse out the names from the 'w' variable, but that could get a little complicated. Is there an easier way to obtain a list of the file names within the ftp directory, or do I have to go about trying to grab it out of the w variable?

Thanks!

EDIT

Using the -l command:

[s,w] = dos('curl "ftp://name:password@ftpurl/directory/"');

The resulting w looks something like:

0 0 0 763 0 0 2319 0 --:--:-- 2437FTPtest-D20110322-T022705.bot

FTPtest-D20110322-T022705.idx

FTPtest-D20110322-T022705.raw

FTPtest-D20110322-T022746.bot

So it looks much better, but since the first file doesn't have a line feed before, it may be a little more difficult. Any ideas on how to get around this?

Thanks!

Upvotes: 1

Views: 6380

Answers (2)

Daniel Stenberg
Daniel Stenberg

Reputation: 58254

Try the -l (that's a lowercase L) option:

When listing an FTP directory, this switch forces a name- only view. Especially useful if you want to machine-parse the contents of an FTP directory since the normal directory view doesn't use a standard look or format.

This option causes an FTP NLST command to be sent. Some FTP servers list only files in their response to NLST; they do not include subdirectories and symbolic links.

(quote originates from http://curl.haxx.se/docs/manpage.html#-l)

Upvotes: 4

Andrew Janke
Andrew Janke

Reputation: 23908

How about use Matlab's built-in ftp support instead of shelling out to curl? See "help ftp".

Upvotes: 0

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