curl-curl/docs/libcurl/opts/CURLOPT_FTP_FILEMETHOD.md
Viktor Szakats d01d2ec9f1
docs: add CURLOPT type change history, drop casts where present
Some CURLOPT constants defined in the curl public headers were initially
enums (= ints), or macros with bare numeric values. Recent curl releases
upgraded them to `long` constants, to make them pass correctly to
`curl_easy_setop()` by default, i.e. without requiring a `(long)` cast.

This patch drops such casts from the examples embedded in the docs. At
the same time it documents which curl release made them `long` types,
to keep them useful when working with previous libcurl versions.

Also:
- drop a `(long)` cast that was never necessary.
- CURLOPT_ALTSVC_CTRL.md: bump local copy of macros to long.
- test1119: make it ignore symbols ending with an underscore, to skip
  wildcard, e.g. `**CURLAUTH_***`.

Closes #18130
2025-08-02 00:05:33 +02:00

2.2 KiB

c SPDX-License-Identifier Title Section Source Protocol See-also Added-in
Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al. curl CURLOPT_FTP_FILEMETHOD 3 libcurl
FTP
CURLOPT_DIRLISTONLY (3)
CURLOPT_FTP_SKIP_PASV_IP (3)
7.15.1

NAME

CURLOPT_FTP_FILEMETHOD - select directory traversing method for FTP

SYNOPSIS

#include <curl/curl.h>

CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_FTP_FILEMETHOD,
                          long method);

DESCRIPTION

Pass a long telling libcurl which method to use to reach a file on a FTP(S) server.

This option exists because some server implementations are not compliant to what the standards say should work.

The argument should be one of the following alternatives:

CURLFTPMETHOD_MULTICWD

libcurl does a single CWD operation for each path part in the given URL. For deep hierarchies this means many commands. This is how RFC 1738 says it should be done. This is the default but the slowest behavior.

CURLFTPMETHOD_NOCWD

libcurl makes no CWD at all. libcurl does SIZE, RETR, STOR etc and gives a full path to the server for all these commands. This is the fastest behavior since it skips having to change directories.

CURLFTPMETHOD_SINGLECWD

libcurl does one CWD with the full target directory and then operates on the file &"normally" (like in the multicwd case). This is somewhat more standards compliant than 'nocwd' but without the full penalty of 'multicwd'.

DEFAULT

CURLFTPMETHOD_MULTICWD

%PROTOCOLS%

EXAMPLE

int main(void)
{
  CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
  if(curl) {
    CURLcode res;
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "ftp://example.com/1/2/3/4/new.txt");
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_FTP_FILEMETHOD, CURLFTPMETHOD_SINGLECWD);

    res = curl_easy_perform(curl);

    curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
  }
}

HISTORY

CURLFTPMETHOD_* enums became long types in 8.16.0, prior to this version a long cast was necessary when passed to curl_easy_setopt(3).

%AVAILABILITY%

RETURN VALUE

curl_easy_setopt(3) returns a CURLcode indicating success or error.

CURLE_OK (0) means everything was OK, non-zero means an error occurred, see libcurl-errors(3).