1ZSHZFTPSYS(1) General Commands Manual ZSHZFTPSYS(1)
2
6 zshzftpsys - zftp function front-end
7
9 This describes the set of shell functions supplied with the source dis‐
10 tribution as an interface to the zftp builtin command, allowing you to
11 perform FTP operations from the shell command line or within functions
12 or scripts. The interface is similar to a traditional FTP client (e.g.
13 the ftp command itself, see ftp(1)), but as it is entirely done within
14 the shell all the familiar completion, editing and globbing features,
15 and so on, are present, and macros are particularly simple to write as
16 they are just ordinary shell functions.
17 The prerequisite is that the zftp command, as described in zshmod‐
19 ules(1) , must be available in the version of zsh installed at your
20 site. If the shell is configured to load new commands at run time, it
21 probably is: typing `zmodload zsh/zftp' will make sure (if that runs
22 silently, it has worked). If this is not the case, it is possible zftp
23 was linked into the shell anyway: to test this, type `which zftp' and
24 if zftp is available you will get the message `zftp: shell built-in
25 command'.
26 Commands given directly with zftp builtin may be interspersed between
28 the functions in this suite; in a few cases, using zftp directly may
29 cause some of the status information stored in shell parameters to
30 become invalid. Note in particular the description of the variables
31 $ZFTP_TMOUT, $ZFTP_PREFS and $ZFTP_VERBOSE for zftp.
32
34 You should make sure all the functions from the Functions/Zftp direc‐
35 tory of the source distribution are available; they all begin with the
36 two letters `zf'. They may already have been installed on your system;
37 otherwise, you will need to find them and copy them. The directory
38 should appear as one of the elements of the $fpath array (this should
39 already be the case if they were installed), and at least the function
40 zfinit should be autoloaded; it will autoload the rest. Finally, to
41 initialize the use of the system you need to call the zfinit function.
42 The following code in your .zshrc will arrange for this; assume the
43 functions are stored in the directory ~/myfns:
44 fpath=(~/myfns $fpath)
46 autoload -U zfinit
47 zfinit
48 Note that zfinit assumes you are using the zmodload method to load the
50 zftp command. If it is already built into the shell, change zfinit to
51 zfinit -n. It is helpful (though not essential) if the call to zfinit
52 appears after any code to initialize the new completion system, else
53 unnecessary compctl commands will be given.
54
56 The sequence of operations in performing a file transfer is essentially
57 the same as that in a standard FTP client. Note that, due to a quirk
58 of the shell's getopts builtin, for those functions that handle options
59 you must use `--' rather than `-' to ensure the remaining arguments are
60 treated literally (a single `-' is treated as an argument).
61 Opening a connection
63 zfparams [ host [ user [ password ... ] ] ]
64 Set or show the parameters for a future zfopen with no argu‐
65 ments. If no arguments are given, the current parameters are
66 displayed (the password will be shown as a line of asterisks).
67 If a host is given, and either the user or password is not, they
68 will be prompted for; also, any parameter given as `?' will be
69 prompted for, and if the `?' is followed by a string, that will
70 be used as the prompt. As zfopen calls zfparams to store the
71 parameters, this usually need not be called directly.
72 A single argument `-' will delete the stored parameters. This
74 will also cause the memory of the last directory (and so on) on
75 the other host to be deleted.
76 zfopen [ -1 ] [ host [ user [ password [ account ] ] ] ]
78 If host is present, open a connection to that host under user‐
79 name user with password password (and, on the rare occasions
80 when it is necessary, account account). If a necessary parame‐
81 ter is missing or given as `?' it will be prompted for. If host
82 is not present, use a previously stored set of parameters.
83 If the command was successful, and the terminal is compatible
85 with xterm or is sun-cmd, a summary will appear in the title
86 bar, giving the local host:directory and the remote host:direc‐
87 tory; this is handled by the function zftp_chpwd, described
88 below.
89 Normally, the host, user and password are internally recorded
91 for later re-opening, either by a zfopen with no arguments, or
92 automatically (see below). With the option `-1', no information
93 is stored. Also, if an open command with arguments failed, the
94 parameters will not be retained (and any previous parameters
95 will also be deleted). A zfopen on its own, or a zfopen -1,
96 never alters the stored parameters.
97 Both zfopen and zfanon (but not zfparams) understand URLs of the
99 form ftp://host/path... as meaning to connect to the host, then
100 change directory to path (which must be a directory, not a
101 file). The `ftp://' can be omitted; the trailing `/' is enough
102 to trigger recognition of the path. Note prefixes other than
103 `ftp:' are not recognized, and that all characters after the
104 first slash beyond host are significant in path.
105 zfanon [ -1 ] host
107 Open a connection host for anonymous FTP. The username used is
108 `anonymous'. The password (which will be reported the first
109 time) is generated as user@host; this is then stored in the
110 shell parameter $EMAIL_ADDR which can alternatively be set manu‐
111 ally to a suitable string.
112 Directory management
114 zfcd [ dir ]
115 zfcd -
116 zfcd old new
117 Change the current directory on the remote server: this is
118 implemented to have many of the features of the shell builtin
119 cd.
120 In the first form with dir present, change to the directory dir.
122 The command `zfcd ..' is treated specially, so is guaranteed to
123 work on non-UNIX servers (note this is handled internally by
124 zftp). If dir is omitted, has the effect of `zfcd ~'.
125 The second form changes to the directory previously current.
127 The third form attempts to change the current directory by
129 replacing the first occurrence of the string old with the string
130 new in the current directory.
131 Note that in this command, and indeed anywhere a remote filename
133 is expected, the string which on the local host corresponds to
134 `~' is converted back to a `~' before being passed to the remote
135 machine. This is convenient because of the way expansion is
136 performed on the command line before zfcd receives a string.
137 For example, suppose the command is `zfcd ~/foo'. The shell
138 will expand this to a full path such as `zfcd
139 /home/user2/pws/foo'. At this stage, zfcd recognises the ini‐
140 tial path as corresponding to `~' and will send the directory to
141 the remote host as ~/foo, so that the `~' will be expanded by
142 the server to the correct remote host directory. Other named
143 directories of the form `~name' are not treated in this fashion.
144 zfhere Change directory on the remote server to the one corresponding
146 to the current local directory, with special handling of `~' as
147 in zfcd. For example, if the current local directory is
148 ~/foo/bar, then zfhere performs the effect of `zfcd ~/foo/bar'.
149 zfdir [ -rfd ] [ - ] [ dir-options ] [ dir ]
151 Produce a long directory listing. The arguments dir-options and
152 dir are passed directly to the server and their effect is imple‐
153 mentation dependent, but specifying a particular remote direc‐
154 tory dir is usually possible. The output is passed through a
155 pager given by the environment variable $PAGER, or `more' if
156 that is not set.
157 The directory is usually cached for re-use. In fact, two caches
159 are maintained. One is for use when there is no dir-options or
160 dir, i.e. a full listing of the current remote directory; it is
161 flushed when the current remote directory changes. The other is
162 kept for repeated use of zfdir with the same arguments; for
163 example, repeated use of `zfdir /pub/gnu' will only require the
164 directory to be retrieved on the first call. Alternatively,
165 this cache can be re-viewed with the -r option. As relative
166 directories will confuse zfdir, the -f option can be used to
167 force the cache to be flushed before the directory is listed.
168 The option -d will delete both caches without showing a direc‐
169 tory listing; it will also delete the cache of file names in the
170 current remote directory, if any.
171 zfls [ ls-options ] [ dir ]
173 List files on the remote server. With no arguments, this will
174 produce a simple list of file names for the current remote
175 directory. Any arguments are passed directly to the server. No
176 pager and no caching is used.
177 Status commands
179 zftype [ type ]
180 With no arguments, show the type of data to be transferred, usu‐
181 ally ASCII or binary. With an argument, change the type: the
182 types `A' or `ASCII' for ASCII data and `B' or `BINARY', `I' or
183 `IMAGE' for binary data are understood case-insensitively.
184 zfstat [ -v ]
186 Show the status of the current or last connection, as well as
187 the status of some of zftp's status variables. With the -v
188 option, a more verbose listing is produced by querying the
189 server for its version of events, too.
190 Retrieving files
192 The commands for retrieving files all take at least two options. -G
193 suppresses remote filename expansion which would otherwise be performed
194 (see below for a more detailed description of that). -t attempts to
195 set the modification time of the local file to that of the remote file:
196 see the description of the function zfrtime below for more information.
197 zfget [ -Gtc ] file1 ...
199 Retrieve all the listed files file1 ... one at a time from the
200 remote server. If a file contains a `/', the full name is
201 passed to the remote server, but the file is stored locally
202 under the name given by the part after the final `/'. The
203 option -c (cat) forces all files to be sent as a single stream
204 to standard output; in this case the -t option has no effect.
205 zfuget [ -Gvst ] file1 ...
207 As zfget, but only retrieve files where the version on the
208 remote server is newer (has a later modification time), or where
209 the local file does not exist. If the remote file is older but
210 the files have different sizes, or if the sizes are the same but
211 the remote file is newer, the user will usually be queried.
212 With the option -s, the command runs silently and will always
213 retrieve the file in either of those two cases. With the option
214 -v, the command prints more information about the files while it
215 is working out whether or not to transfer them.
216 zfcget [ -Gt ] file1 ...
218 As zfget, but if any of the local files exists, and is shorter
219 than the corresponding remote file, the command assumes that it
220 is the result of a partially completed transfer and attempts to
221 transfer the rest of the file. This is useful on a poor connec‐
222 tion which keeps failing.
223 Note that this requires a commonly implemented, but non-stan‐
225 dard, version of the FTP protocol, so is not guaranteed to work
226 on all servers.
227 zfgcp [ -Gt ] remote-file local-file
229 zfgcp [ -Gt ] rfile1 ... ldir
230 This retrieves files from the remote server with arguments
231 behaving similarly to the cp command.
232 In the first form, copy remote-file from the server to the local
234 file local-file.
235 In the second form, copy all the remote files rfile1 ... into
237 the local directory ldir retaining the same basenames. This
238 assumes UNIX directory semantics.
239 Sending files
241 zfput [ -r ] file1 ...
242 Send all the file1 ... given separately to the remote server.
243 If a filename contains a `/', the full filename is used locally
244 to find the file, but only the basename is used for the remote
245 file name.
246 With the option -r, if any of the files are directories they are
248 sent recursively with all their subdirectories, including files
249 beginning with `.'. This requires that the remote machine
250 understand UNIX file semantics, since `/' is used as a directory
251 separator.
252 zfuput [ -vs ] file1 ...
254 As zfput, but only send files which are newer than their remote
255 equivalents, or if the remote file does not exist. The logic is
256 the same as for zfuget, but reversed between local and remote
257 files.
258 zfcput file1 ...
260 As zfput, but if any remote file already exists and is shorter
261 than the local equivalent, assume it is the result of an incom‐
262 plete transfer and send the rest of the file to append to the
263 existing part. As the FTP append command is part of the stan‐
264 dard set, this is in principle more likely to work than zfcget.
265 zfpcp local-file remote-file
267 zfpcp lfile1 ... rdir
268 This sends files to the remote server with arguments behaving
269 similarly to the cp command.
270 With two arguments, copy local-file to the server as
272 remote-file.
273 With more than two arguments, copy all the local files lfile1
275 ... into the existing remote directory rdir retaining the same
276 basenames. This assumes UNIX directory semantics.
277 A problem arises if you attempt to use zfpcp lfile1 rdir, i.e.
279 the second form of copying but with two arguments, as the com‐
280 mand has no simple way of knowing if rdir corresponds to a
281 directory or a filename. It attempts to resolve this in various
282 ways. First, if the rdir argument is `.' or `..' or ends in a
283 slash, it is assumed to be a directory. Secondly, if the opera‐
284 tion of copying to a remote file in the first form failed, and
285 the remote server sends back the expected failure code 553 and a
286 reply including the string `Is a directory', then zfpcp will
287 retry using the second form.
288 Closing the connection
290 zfclose
291 Close the connection.
292 Session management
294 zfsession [ -lvod ] [ sessname ]
295 Allows you to manage multiple FTP sessions at once. By default,
296 connections take place in a session called `default'; by giving
297 the command `zfsession sessname' you can change to a new or
298 existing session with a name of your choice. The new session
299 remembers its own connection, as well as associated shell param‐
300 eters, and also the host/user parameters set by zfparams. Hence
301 you can have different sessions set up to connect to different
302 hosts, each remembering the appropriate host, user and password.
303 With no arguments, zfsession prints the name of the current ses‐
305 sion; with the option -l it lists all sessions which currently
306 exist, and with the option -v it gives a verbose list showing
307 the host and directory for each session, where the current ses‐
308 sion is marked with an asterisk. With -o, it will switch to the
309 most recent previous session.
310 With -d, the given session (or else the current one) is removed;
312 everything to do with it is completely forgotten. If it was the
313 only session, a new session called `default' is created and made
314 current. It is safest not to delete sessions while background
315 commands using zftp are active.
316 zftransfer sess1:file1 sess2:file2
318 Transfer files between two sessions; no local copy is made. The
319 file is read from the session sess1 as file1 and written to ses‐
320 sion sess2 as file file2; file1 and file2 may be relative to the
321 current directories of the session. Either sess1 or sess2 may
322 be omitted (though the colon should be retained if there is a
323 possibility of a colon appearing in the file name) and defaults
324 to the current session; file2 may be omitted or may end with a
325 slash, in which case the basename of file1 will be added. The
326 sessions sess1 and sess2 must be distinct.
327 The operation is performed using pipes, so it is required that
329 the connections still be valid in a subshell, which is not the
330 case under versions of some operating systems, presumably due to
331 a system bug.
332 Bookmarks
334 The two functions zfmark and zfgoto allow you to `bookmark' the present
335 location (host, user and directory) of the current FTP connection for
336 later use. The file to be used for storing and retrieving bookmarks is
337 given by the parameter $ZFTP_BMFILE; if not set when one of the two
338 functions is called, it will be set to the file .zfbkmarks in the
339 directory where your zsh startup files live (usually ~).
340 zfmark [ bookmark ]
342 If given an argument, mark the current host, user and directory
343 under the name bookmark for later use by zfgoto. If there is no
344 connection open, use the values for the last connection immedi‐
345 ately before it was closed; it is an error if there was none.
346 Any existing bookmark under the same name will be silently
347 replaced.
348 If not given an argument, list the existing bookmarks and the
350 points to which they refer in the form user@host:directory; this
351 is the format in which they are stored, and the file may be
352 edited directly.
353 zfgoto [ -n ] bookmark
355 Return to the location given by bookmark, as previously set by
356 zfmark. If the location has user `ftp' or `anonymous', open the
357 connection with zfanon, so that no password is required. If the
358 user and host parameters match those stored for the current ses‐
359 sion, if any, those will be used, and again no password is
360 required. Otherwise a password will be prompted for.
361 With the option -n, the bookmark is taken to be a nickname
363 stored by the ncftp program in its bookmark file, which is
364 assumed to be ~/.ncftp/bookmarks. The function works identi‐
365 cally in other ways. Note that there is no mechanism for adding
366 or modifying ncftp bookmarks from the zftp functions.
367 Other functions
369 Mostly, these functions will not be called directly (apart from
370 zfinit), but are described here for completeness. You may wish to
371 alter zftp_chpwd and zftp_progress, in particular.
372 zfinit [ -n ]
374 As described above, this is used to initialize the zftp function
375 system. The -n option should be used if the zftp command is
376 already built into the shell.
377 zfautocheck [ -dn ]
379 This function is called to implement automatic reopening behav‐
380 iour, as described in more detail below. The options must
381 appear in the first argument; -n prevents the command from
382 changing to the old directory, while -d prevents it from setting
383 the variable do_close, which it otherwise does as a flag for
384 automatically closing the connection after a transfer. The host
385 and directory for the last session are stored in the variable
386 $zflastsession, but the internal host/user/password parameters
387 must also be correctly set.
388 zfcd_match prefix suffix
390 This performs matching for completion of remote directory names.
391 If the remote server is UNIX, it will attempt to persuade the
392 server to list the remote directory with subdirectories marked,
393 which usually works but is not guaranteed. On other hosts it
394 simply calls zfget_match and hence completes all files, not just
395 directories. On some systems, directories may not even look
396 like filenames.
397 zfget_match prefix suffix
399 This performs matching for completion of remote filenames. It
400 caches files for the current directory (only) in the shell
401 parameter $zftp_fcache. It is in the form to be called by the
402 -K option of compctl, but also works when called from a wid‐
403 get-style completion function with prefix and suffix set appro‐
404 priately.
405 zfrglob varname
407 Perform remote globbing, as describes in more detail below.
408 varname is the name of a variable containing the pattern to be
409 expanded; if there were any matches, the same variable will be
410 set to the expanded set of filenames on return.
411 zfrtime lfile rfile [ time ]
413 Set the local file lfile to have the same modification time as
414 the remote file rfile, or the explicit time time in FTP format
415 CCYYMMDDhhmmSS for the GMT timezone. This uses the shell's
416 zsh/datetime module to perform the conversion from GMT to local
417 time.
418 zftp_chpwd
420 This function is called every time a connection is opened, or
421 closed, or the remote directory changes. This version alters
422 the title bar of an xterm-compatible or sun-cmd terminal emula‐
423 tor to reflect the local and remote hostnames and current direc‐
424 tories. It works best when combined with the function chpwd.
425 In particular, a function of the form
426 chpwd() {
428 if [[ -n $ZFTP_USER ]]; then
429 zftp_chpwd
430 else
431 # usual chpwd e.g put host:directory in title bar
432 fi
433 }
434 fits in well.
436 zftp_progress
438 This function shows the status of the transfer. It will not
439 write anything unless the output is going to a terminal; how‐
440 ever, if you transfer files in the background, you should turn
441 off progress reports by hand using `zstyle ':zftp:*' progress
442 none'. Note also that if you alter it, any output must be to
443 standard error, as standard output may be a file being received.
444 The form of the progress meter, or whether it is used at all,
445 can be configured without altering the function, as described in
446 the next section.
447 zffcache
449 This is used to implement caching of files in the current direc‐
450 tory for each session separately. It is used by zfget_match and
451 zfrglob.
452
454 Configuration
455 Various styles are available using the standard shell style mechanism,
456 described in zshmodules(1). Briefly, the command `zstyle ':zftp:*'
457 style value ...'. defines the style to have value value; more than one
458 value may be given, although that is not useful in the cases described
459 here. These values will then be used throughout the zftp function sys‐
460 tem. For more precise control, the first argument, which gives a con‐
461 text in which the style applies, can be modified to include a particu‐
462 lar function, as for example `:zftp:zfget': the style will then have
463 the given value only in the zfget function. Values for the same style
464 in different contexts may be set; the most specific function will be
465 used, where strings are held to be more specific than patterns, and
466 longer patterns and shorter patterns. Note that only the top level
467 function name, as called by the user, is used; calling of lower level
468 functions is transparent to the user. Hence modifications to the title
469 bar in zftp_chpwd use the contexts :zftp:zfopen, :zftp:zfcd, etc.,
470 depending where it was called from. The following styles are under‐
471 stood:
472 progress
474 Controls the way that zftp_progress reports on the progress of a
475 transfer. If empty, unset, or `none', no progress report is
476 made; if `bar' a growing bar of inverse video is shown; if `per‐
477 cent' (or any other string, though this may change in future),
478 the percentage of the file transferred is shown. The bar meter
479 requires that the width of the terminal be available via the
480 $COLUMNS parameter (normally this is set automatically). If the
481 size of the file being transferred is not available, bar and
482 percent meters will simply show the number of bytes transferred
483 so far.
484 When zfinit is run, if this style is not defined for the context
486 :zftp:*, it will be set to `bar'.
487 update Specifies the minimum time interval between updates of the
489 progress meter in seconds. No update is made unless new data
490 has been received, so the actual time interval is limited only
491 by $ZFTP_TIMEOUT.
492 As described for progress, zfinit will force this to default to
494 1.
495 remote-glob
497 If set to `1', `yes' or `true', filename generation (globbing)
498 is performed on the remote machine instead of by zsh itself; see
499 below.
500 titlebar
502 If set to `1', `yes' or `true', zftp_chpwd will put the remote
503 host and remote directory into the titlebar of terminal emula‐
504 tors such as xterm or sun-cmd that allow this.
505 As described for progress, zfinit will force this to default to
507 1.
508 chpwd If set to `1' `yes' or `true', zftp_chpwd will call the function
510 chpwd when a connection is closed. This is useful if the remote
511 host details were put into the terminal title bar by zftp_chpwd
512 and your usual chpwd also modifies the title bar.
513 When zfinit is run, it will determine whether chpwd exists and
515 if so it will set the default value for the style to 1 if none
516 exists already.
517 Note that there is also an associative array zfconfig which contains
519 values used by the function system. This should not be modified or
520 overwritten.
521 Remote globbing
523 The commands for retrieving files usually perform filename generation
524 (globbing) on their arguments; this can be turned off by passing the
525 option -G to each of the commands. Normally this operates by retriev‐
526 ing a complete list of files for the directory in question, then match‐
527 ing these locally against the pattern supplied. This has the advantage
528 that the full range of zsh patterns (respecting the setting of the
529 option EXTENDED_GLOB) can be used. However, it means that the direc‐
530 tory part of a filename will not be expanded and must be given exactly.
531 If the remote server does not support the UNIX directory semantics,
532 directory handling is problematic and it is recommended that globbing
533 only be used within the current directory. The list of files in the
534 current directory, if retrieved, will be cached, so that subsequent
535 globs in the same directory without an intervening zfcd are much
536 faster.
537 If the remote-glob style (see above) is set, globbing is instead per‐
539 formed on the remote host: the server is asked for a list of matching
540 files. This is highly dependent on how the server is implemented,
541 though typically UNIX servers will provide support for basic glob pat‐
542 terns. This may in some cases be faster, as it avoids retrieving the
543 entire list of directory contents.
544 Automatic and temporary reopening
546 As described for the zfopen command, a subsequent zfopen with no param‐
547 eters will reopen the connection to the last host (this includes con‐
548 nections made with the zfanon command). Opened in this fashion, the
549 connection starts in the default remote directory and will remain open
550 until explicitly closed.
551 Automatic re-opening is also available. If a connection is not cur‐
553 rently open and a command requiring a connection is given, the last
554 connection is implicitly reopened. In this case the directory which
555 was current when the connection was closed again becomes the current
556 directory (unless, of course, the command given changes it). Automatic
557 reopening will also take place if the connection was close by the
558 remote server for whatever reason (e.g. a timeout). It is not avail‐
559 able if the -1 option to zfopen or zfanon was used.
560 Furthermore, if the command issued is a file transfer, the connection
562 will be closed after the transfer is finished, hence providing a
563 one-shot mode for transfers. This does not apply to directory changing
564 or listing commands; for example a zfdir may reopen a connection but
565 will leave it open. Also, automatic closure will only ever happen in
566 the same command as automatic opening, i.e a zfdir directly followed by
567 a zfget will never close the connection automatically.
568 Information about the previous connection is given by the zfstat func‐
570 tion. So, for example, if that reports:
571 Session: default
573 Not connected.
574 Last session: ftp.bar.com:/pub/textfiles
575 then the command zfget file.txt will attempt to reopen a connection to
577 ftp.bar.com, retrieve the file /pub/textfiles/file.txt, and immediately
578 close the connection again. On the other hand, zfcd .. will open the
579 connection in the directory /pub and leave it open.
580 Note that all the above is local to each session; if you return to a
582 previous session, the connection for that session is the one which will
583 be reopened.
584 Completion
586 Completion of local and remote files, directories, sessions and book‐
587 marks is supported. The older, compctl-style completion is defined
588 when zfinit is called; support for the new widget-based completion sys‐
589 tem is provided in the function Completion/Zsh/Command/_zftp, which
590 should be installed with the other functions of the completion system
591 and hence should automatically be available.
592zsh 5.8 February 14, 2020 ZSHZFTPSYS(1)