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 be‐
30 come 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 be‐
88 low.
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 im‐
118 plemented to have many of the features of the shell builtin cd.
119 In the first form with dir present, change to the directory dir.
121 The command `zfcd ..' is treated specially, so is guaranteed to
122 work on non-UNIX servers (note this is handled internally by
123 zftp). If dir is omitted, has the effect of `zfcd ~'.
124 The second form changes to the directory previously current.
126 The third form attempts to change the current directory by re‐
128 placing the first occurrence of the string old with the string
129 new in the current directory.
130 Note that in this command, and indeed anywhere a remote filename
132 is expected, the string which on the local host corresponds to
133 `~' is converted back to a `~' before being passed to the remote
134 machine. This is convenient because of the way expansion is
135 performed on the command line before zfcd receives a string.
136 For example, suppose the command is `zfcd ~/foo'. The shell
137 will expand this to a full path such as `zfcd
138 /home/user2/pws/foo'. At this stage, zfcd recognises the ini‐
139 tial path as corresponding to `~' and will send the directory to
140 the remote host as ~/foo, so that the `~' will be expanded by
141 the server to the correct remote host directory. Other named
142 directories of the form `~name' are not treated in this fashion.
143 zfhere Change directory on the remote server to the one corresponding
145 to the current local directory, with special handling of `~' as
146 in zfcd. For example, if the current local directory is
147 ~/foo/bar, then zfhere performs the effect of `zfcd ~/foo/bar'.
148 zfdir [ -rfd ] [ - ] [ dir-options ] [ dir ]
150 Produce a long directory listing. The arguments dir-options and
151 dir are passed directly to the server and their effect is imple‐
152 mentation dependent, but specifying a particular remote direc‐
153 tory dir is usually possible. The output is passed through a
154 pager given by the environment variable $PAGER, or `more' if
155 that is not set.
156 The directory is usually cached for re-use. In fact, two caches
158 are maintained. One is for use when there is no dir-options or
159 dir, i.e. a full listing of the current remote directory; it is
160 flushed when the current remote directory changes. The other is
161 kept for repeated use of zfdir with the same arguments; for ex‐
162 ample, repeated use of `zfdir /pub/gnu' will only require the
163 directory to be retrieved on the first call. Alternatively,
164 this cache can be re-viewed with the -r option. As relative di‐
165 rectories will confuse zfdir, the -f option can be used to force
166 the cache to be flushed before the directory is listed. The op‐
167 tion -d will delete both caches without showing a directory
168 listing; it will also delete the cache of file names in the cur‐
169 rent remote directory, if any.
170 zfls [ ls-options ] [ dir ]
172 List files on the remote server. With no arguments, this will
173 produce a simple list of file names for the current remote di‐
174 rectory. Any arguments are passed directly to the server. No
175 pager and no caching is used.
176 Status commands
178 zftype [ type ]
179 With no arguments, show the type of data to be transferred, usu‐
180 ally ASCII or binary. With an argument, change the type: the
181 types `A' or `ASCII' for ASCII data and `B' or `BINARY', `I' or
182 `IMAGE' for binary data are understood case-insensitively.
183 zfstat [ -v ]
185 Show the status of the current or last connection, as well as
186 the status of some of zftp's status variables. With the -v op‐
187 tion, a more verbose listing is produced by querying the server
188 for its version of events, too.
189 Retrieving files
191 The commands for retrieving files all take at least two options. -G
192 suppresses remote filename expansion which would otherwise be performed
193 (see below for a more detailed description of that). -t attempts to
194 set the modification time of the local file to that of the remote file:
195 see the description of the function zfrtime below for more information.
196 zfget [ -Gtc ] file1 ...
198 Retrieve all the listed files file1 ... one at a time from the
199 remote server. If a file contains a `/', the full name is
200 passed to the remote server, but the file is stored locally un‐
201 der the name given by the part after the final `/'. The option
202 -c (cat) forces all files to be sent as a single stream to stan‐
203 dard output; in this case the -t option has no effect.
204 zfuget [ -Gvst ] file1 ...
206 As zfget, but only retrieve files where the version on the re‐
207 mote server is newer (has a later modification time), or where
208 the local file does not exist. If the remote file is older but
209 the files have different sizes, or if the sizes are the same but
210 the remote file is newer, the user will usually be queried.
211 With the option -s, the command runs silently and will always
212 retrieve the file in either of those two cases. With the option
213 -v, the command prints more information about the files while it
214 is working out whether or not to transfer them.
215 zfcget [ -Gt ] file1 ...
217 As zfget, but if any of the local files exists, and is shorter
218 than the corresponding remote file, the command assumes that it
219 is the result of a partially completed transfer and attempts to
220 transfer the rest of the file. This is useful on a poor connec‐
221 tion which keeps failing.
222 Note that this requires a commonly implemented, but non-stan‐
224 dard, version of the FTP protocol, so is not guaranteed to work
225 on all servers.
226 zfgcp [ -Gt ] remote-file local-file
228 zfgcp [ -Gt ] rfile1 ... ldir
229 This retrieves files from the remote server with arguments be‐
230 having similarly to the cp command.
231 In the first form, copy remote-file from the server to the local
233 file local-file.
234 In the second form, copy all the remote files rfile1 ... into
236 the local directory ldir retaining the same basenames. This as‐
237 sumes UNIX directory semantics.
238 Sending files
240 zfput [ -r ] file1 ...
241 Send all the file1 ... given separately to the remote server.
242 If a filename contains a `/', the full filename is used locally
243 to find the file, but only the basename is used for the remote
244 file name.
245 With the option -r, if any of the files are directories they are
247 sent recursively with all their subdirectories, including files
248 beginning with `.'. This requires that the remote machine un‐
249 derstand UNIX file semantics, since `/' is used as a directory
250 separator.
251 zfuput [ -vs ] file1 ...
253 As zfput, but only send files which are newer than their remote
254 equivalents, or if the remote file does not exist. The logic is
255 the same as for zfuget, but reversed between local and remote
256 files.
257 zfcput file1 ...
259 As zfput, but if any remote file already exists and is shorter
260 than the local equivalent, assume it is the result of an incom‐
261 plete transfer and send the rest of the file to append to the
262 existing part. As the FTP append command is part of the stan‐
263 dard set, this is in principle more likely to work than zfcget.
264 zfpcp local-file remote-file
266 zfpcp lfile1 ... rdir
267 This sends files to the remote server with arguments behaving
268 similarly to the cp command.
269 With two arguments, copy local-file to the server as re‐
271 mote-file.
272 With more than two arguments, copy all the local files lfile1
274 ... into the existing remote directory rdir retaining the same
275 basenames. This assumes UNIX directory semantics.
276 A problem arises if you attempt to use zfpcp lfile1 rdir, i.e.
278 the second form of copying but with two arguments, as the com‐
279 mand has no simple way of knowing if rdir corresponds to a di‐
280 rectory or a filename. It attempts to resolve this in various
281 ways. First, if the rdir argument is `.' or `..' or ends in a
282 slash, it is assumed to be a directory. Secondly, if the opera‐
283 tion of copying to a remote file in the first form failed, and
284 the remote server sends back the expected failure code 553 and a
285 reply including the string `Is a directory', then zfpcp will
286 retry using the second form.
287 Closing the connection
289 zfclose
290 Close the connection.
291 Session management
293 zfsession [ -lvod ] [ sessname ]
294 Allows you to manage multiple FTP sessions at once. By default,
295 connections take place in a session called `default'; by giving
296 the command `zfsession sessname' you can change to a new or ex‐
297 isting session with a name of your choice. The new session re‐
298 members its own connection, as well as associated shell parame‐
299 ters, and also the host/user parameters set by zfparams. Hence
300 you can have different sessions set up to connect to different
301 hosts, each remembering the appropriate host, user and password.
302 With no arguments, zfsession prints the name of the current ses‐
304 sion; with the option -l it lists all sessions which currently
305 exist, and with the option -v it gives a verbose list showing
306 the host and directory for each session, where the current ses‐
307 sion is marked with an asterisk. With -o, it will switch to the
308 most recent previous session.
309 With -d, the given session (or else the current one) is removed;
311 everything to do with it is completely forgotten. If it was the
312 only session, a new session called `default' is created and made
313 current. It is safest not to delete sessions while background
314 commands using zftp are active.
315 zftransfer sess1:file1 sess2:file2
317 Transfer files between two sessions; no local copy is made. The
318 file is read from the session sess1 as file1 and written to ses‐
319 sion sess2 as file file2; file1 and file2 may be relative to the
320 current directories of the session. Either sess1 or sess2 may
321 be omitted (though the colon should be retained if there is a
322 possibility of a colon appearing in the file name) and defaults
323 to the current session; file2 may be omitted or may end with a
324 slash, in which case the basename of file1 will be added. The
325 sessions sess1 and sess2 must be distinct.
326 The operation is performed using pipes, so it is required that
328 the connections still be valid in a subshell, which is not the
329 case under versions of some operating systems, presumably due to
330 a system bug.
331 Bookmarks
333 The two functions zfmark and zfgoto allow you to `bookmark' the present
334 location (host, user and directory) of the current FTP connection for
335 later use. The file to be used for storing and retrieving bookmarks is
336 given by the parameter $ZFTP_BMFILE; if not set when one of the two
337 functions is called, it will be set to the file .zfbkmarks in the di‐
338 rectory where your zsh startup files live (usually ~).
339 zfmark [ bookmark ]
341 If given an argument, mark the current host, user and directory
342 under the name bookmark for later use by zfgoto. If there is no
343 connection open, use the values for the last connection immedi‐
344 ately before it was closed; it is an error if there was none.
345 Any existing bookmark under the same name will be silently re‐
346 placed.
347 If not given an argument, list the existing bookmarks and the
349 points to which they refer in the form user@host:directory; this
350 is the format in which they are stored, and the file may be
351 edited directly.
352 zfgoto [ -n ] bookmark
354 Return to the location given by bookmark, as previously set by
355 zfmark. If the location has user `ftp' or `anonymous', open the
356 connection with zfanon, so that no password is required. If the
357 user and host parameters match those stored for the current ses‐
358 sion, if any, those will be used, and again no password is re‐
359 quired. Otherwise a password will be prompted for.
360 With the option -n, the bookmark is taken to be a nickname
362 stored by the ncftp program in its bookmark file, which is as‐
363 sumed to be ~/.ncftp/bookmarks. The function works identically
364 in other ways. Note that there is no mechanism for adding or
365 modifying ncftp bookmarks from the zftp functions.
366 Other functions
368 Mostly, these functions will not be called directly (apart from
369 zfinit), but are described here for completeness. You may wish to al‐
370 ter zftp_chpwd and zftp_progress, in particular.
371 zfinit [ -n ]
373 As described above, this is used to initialize the zftp function
374 system. The -n option should be used if the zftp command is al‐
375 ready built into the shell.
376 zfautocheck [ -dn ]
378 This function is called to implement automatic reopening behav‐
379 iour, as described in more detail below. The options must ap‐
380 pear in the first argument; -n prevents the command from chang‐
381 ing to the old directory, while -d prevents it from setting the
382 variable do_close, which it otherwise does as a flag for auto‐
383 matically closing the connection after a transfer. The host and
384 directory for the last session are stored in the variable
385 $zflastsession, but the internal host/user/password parameters
386 must also be correctly set.
387 zfcd_match prefix suffix
389 This performs matching for completion of remote directory names.
390 If the remote server is UNIX, it will attempt to persuade the
391 server to list the remote directory with subdirectories marked,
392 which usually works but is not guaranteed. On other hosts it
393 simply calls zfget_match and hence completes all files, not just
394 directories. On some systems, directories may not even look
395 like filenames.
396 zfget_match prefix suffix
398 This performs matching for completion of remote filenames. It
399 caches files for the current directory (only) in the shell pa‐
400 rameter $zftp_fcache. It is in the form to be called by the -K
401 option of compctl, but also works when called from a wid‐
402 get-style completion function with prefix and suffix set appro‐
403 priately.
404 zfrglob varname
406 Perform remote globbing, as describes in more detail below.
407 varname is the name of a variable containing the pattern to be
408 expanded; if there were any matches, the same variable will be
409 set to the expanded set of filenames on return.
410 zfrtime lfile rfile [ time ]
412 Set the local file lfile to have the same modification time as
413 the remote file rfile, or the explicit time time in FTP format
414 CCYYMMDDhhmmSS for the GMT timezone. This uses the shell's
415 zsh/datetime module to perform the conversion from GMT to local
416 time.
417 zftp_chpwd
419 This function is called every time a connection is opened, or
420 closed, or the remote directory changes. This version alters
421 the title bar of an xterm-compatible or sun-cmd terminal emula‐
422 tor to reflect the local and remote hostnames and current direc‐
423 tories. It works best when combined with the function chpwd.
424 In particular, a function of the form
425 chpwd() {
427 if [[ -n $ZFTP_USER ]]; then
428 zftp_chpwd
429 else
430 # usual chpwd e.g put host:directory in title bar
431 fi
432 }
433 fits in well.
435 zftp_progress
437 This function shows the status of the transfer. It will not
438 write anything unless the output is going to a terminal; how‐
439 ever, if you transfer files in the background, you should turn
440 off progress reports by hand using `zstyle ':zftp:*' progress
441 none'. Note also that if you alter it, any output must be to
442 standard error, as standard output may be a file being received.
443 The form of the progress meter, or whether it is used at all,
444 can be configured without altering the function, as described in
445 the next section.
446 zffcache
448 This is used to implement caching of files in the current direc‐
449 tory for each session separately. It is used by zfget_match and
450 zfrglob.
451
453 Configuration
454 Various styles are available using the standard shell style mechanism,
455 described in zshmodules(1). Briefly, the command `zstyle ':zftp:*'
456 style value ...'. defines the style to have value value; more than one
457 value may be given, although that is not useful in the cases described
458 here. These values will then be used throughout the zftp function sys‐
459 tem. For more precise control, the first argument, which gives a pat‐
460 tern that matches contexts in which the style applies, can be modified
461 to include a particular function, as for example `:zftp:zfget': the
462 style will then have the given value only in the zfget function, and
463 will override styles set under `:zftp:*'. Note that only the top level
464 function name, as called by the user, is used; calling of lower level
465 functions is transparent to the user. Hence modifications to the title
466 bar in zftp_chpwd use the contexts :zftp:zfopen, :zftp:zfcd, etc., de‐
467 pending where it was called from. The following styles are understood:
468 progress
470 Controls the way that zftp_progress reports on the progress of a
471 transfer. If empty, unset, or `none', no progress report is
472 made; if `bar' a growing bar of inverse video is shown; if `per‐
473 cent' (or any other string, though this may change in future),
474 the percentage of the file transferred is shown. The bar meter
475 requires that the width of the terminal be available via the
476 $COLUMNS parameter (normally this is set automatically). If the
477 size of the file being transferred is not available, bar and
478 percent meters will simply show the number of bytes transferred
479 so far.
480 When zfinit is run, if this style is not defined for the context
482 :zftp:*, it will be set to `bar'.
483 update Specifies the minimum time interval between updates of the
485 progress meter in seconds. No update is made unless new data
486 has been received, so the actual time interval is limited only
487 by $ZFTP_TIMEOUT.
488 As described for progress, zfinit will force this to default to
490 1.
491 remote-glob
493 If set to `1', `yes' or `true', filename generation (globbing)
494 is performed on the remote machine instead of by zsh itself; see
495 below.
496 titlebar
498 If set to `1', `yes' or `true', zftp_chpwd will put the remote
499 host and remote directory into the titlebar of terminal emula‐
500 tors such as xterm or sun-cmd that allow this.
501 As described for progress, zfinit will force this to default to
503 1.
504 chpwd If set to `1' `yes' or `true', zftp_chpwd will call the function
506 chpwd when a connection is closed. This is useful if the remote
507 host details were put into the terminal title bar by zftp_chpwd
508 and your usual chpwd also modifies the title bar.
509 When zfinit is run, it will determine whether chpwd exists and
511 if so it will set the default value for the style to 1 if none
512 exists already.
513 Note that there is also an associative array zfconfig which contains
515 values used by the function system. This should not be modified or
516 overwritten.
517 Remote globbing
519 The commands for retrieving files usually perform filename generation
520 (globbing) on their arguments; this can be turned off by passing the
521 option -G to each of the commands. Normally this operates by retriev‐
522 ing a complete list of files for the directory in question, then match‐
523 ing these locally against the pattern supplied. This has the advantage
524 that the full range of zsh patterns (respecting the setting of the op‐
525 tion EXTENDED_GLOB) can be used. However, it means that the directory
526 part of a filename will not be expanded and must be given exactly. If
527 the remote server does not support the UNIX directory semantics, direc‐
528 tory handling is problematic and it is recommended that globbing only
529 be used within the current directory. The list of files in the current
530 directory, if retrieved, will be cached, so that subsequent globs in
531 the same directory without an intervening zfcd are much faster.
532 If the remote-glob style (see above) is set, globbing is instead per‐
534 formed on the remote host: the server is asked for a list of matching
535 files. This is highly dependent on how the server is implemented,
536 though typically UNIX servers will provide support for basic glob pat‐
537 terns. This may in some cases be faster, as it avoids retrieving the
538 entire list of directory contents.
539 Automatic and temporary reopening
541 As described for the zfopen command, a subsequent zfopen with no param‐
542 eters will reopen the connection to the last host (this includes con‐
543 nections made with the zfanon command). Opened in this fashion, the
544 connection starts in the default remote directory and will remain open
545 until explicitly closed.
546 Automatic re-opening is also available. If a connection is not cur‐
548 rently open and a command requiring a connection is given, the last
549 connection is implicitly reopened. In this case the directory which
550 was current when the connection was closed again becomes the current
551 directory (unless, of course, the command given changes it). Automatic
552 reopening will also take place if the connection was close by the re‐
553 mote server for whatever reason (e.g. a timeout). It is not available
554 if the -1 option to zfopen or zfanon was used.
555 Furthermore, if the command issued is a file transfer, the connection
557 will be closed after the transfer is finished, hence providing a
558 one-shot mode for transfers. This does not apply to directory changing
559 or listing commands; for example a zfdir may reopen a connection but
560 will leave it open. Also, automatic closure will only ever happen in
561 the same command as automatic opening, i.e a zfdir directly followed by
562 a zfget will never close the connection automatically.
563 Information about the previous connection is given by the zfstat func‐
565 tion. So, for example, if that reports:
566 Session: default
568 Not connected.
569 Last session: ftp.bar.com:/pub/textfiles
570 then the command zfget file.txt will attempt to reopen a connection to
572 ftp.bar.com, retrieve the file /pub/textfiles/file.txt, and immediately
573 close the connection again. On the other hand, zfcd .. will open the
574 connection in the directory /pub and leave it open.
575 Note that all the above is local to each session; if you return to a
577 previous session, the connection for that session is the one which will
578 be reopened.
579 Completion
581 Completion of local and remote files, directories, sessions and book‐
582 marks is supported. The older, compctl-style completion is defined
583 when zfinit is called; support for the new widget-based completion sys‐
584 tem is provided in the function Completion/Zsh/Command/_zftp, which
585 should be installed with the other functions of the completion system
586 and hence should automatically be available.
587zsh 5.9 May 14, 2022 ZSHZFTPSYS(1)