cfftp: Opening and closing FTP server connections

Description

To establish a connection with an FTP server, you use the open action with a connection attribute.

Syntax

<cfftp 
   action = "action"
   username = "name"
   password = "password"
   server = "server"
   timeout = "timeout in seconds"
   port = "port"
   connection = "name"
   proxyServer = "proxy server"
   retryCount = "number"
   stopOnError = "yes" or "no"
   passive = "yes" or "no">

Attributes

Attribute	Req/Opt	Default	Description
action	Required		FTP operation to perform. open: creates an FTP connection close: terminates an FTP connection
username	Required if `action = "open"`		User name to pass in the FTP operation.
password	Required if `action = "open"`		Password to log in the user.
server	Required if `action = "open"`		FTP server to which to connect; for example, `ftp.myserver.com`
timeout	Optional	30	Value in seconds for the timeout of all operations, including individual data request operations.
port	Optional	21	Remote port to which to connect.
connection	Optional, but always used with `open` or `close`		Name of the FTP connection. If you specify the `username`, `password`, and `server` attributes, and if no connection exists for them, ColdFusion creates one. Calls to `cfftp` with the same connection name reuse the connection.
proxyServer	Optional		String. Name of proxy server (or servers) to use, if proxy access is specified.
retryCount	Optional	1	Number of retries until failure is reported.
stopOnError	Optional	no	yes: halts processing, displays an appropriate error. no: populates these variables: cfftp.succeeded - yes or no. cfftp.errorCode - Error number. See the IETF Network Working Group RFC 959: File Transfer Protocol (FTP) www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc0959.txt. cfftp.errorText - Message text. For conditional operations, use `cfftp.errorCode`. Do not use `cfftp.errorText` for this purpose.
passive	Optional	no	yes: enables passive mode. no

Usage

When you establish a connection with cfftp action="open" and specify a name in the connection attribute, ColdFusion caches the connection so that you can reuse it to perform additional FTP operations. When you use a cached connection for subsequent FTP operations, you do not have to specify the username, password, or server connection attributes. The FTP operations that use the same connection name automatically use the information stored in the cached connection. Using a cached connection helps save connection time and improves file transfer performance.

You do not need to open a connection for single, simple, FTP operations, such as GetFile or PutFile.

To keep a connection open throughout a session or longer, put the connection name in the Session or Application scope; for example, specify connection="Session.FTPConnection". However, if you do this, you must specify the full variable name in all FTP operations, and you must use the close action when you are finished. Keeping a connection open prevents others from using the FTP server; so close a connection as soon as possible. If you do not assign the connection name to Session or Application variable, the connection remains open for the current page only, and you do not have to close it manually.

Changes to a cached connection, such as changing retryCount or timeout values, might require reestablishing the connection.

Example

<p>cfftp lets users implement File Transfer Protocol operations. 
By default, cfftp caches an open connection to an FTP server.
<p>cfftp operations are usually of two types:
<ul>
   <li>Establishing a connection
   <li>Performing file and directory operations
</ul>
<p>This example opens and verifies a connection, lists the files in a 
directory, and closes the connection.
<p>Open a connection
<cfftp action = "open"
   username = "anonymous"
   connection = "My_query"
   password = "youremail@email.com"
   server = "ftp.tucows.com"
   stopOnError = "Yes">
<p>Did it succeed? <cfoutput>#cfftp.succeeded#</cfoutput>
<p>List the files in a directory:
<cfftp action = "LISTDIR"
    stopOnError = "Yes"
    name = "ListFiles"
    directory = "/"
    connection = "my_query">
<cfoutput query = "ListFiles">
   #name#<br>
</cfoutput>

<p>Close the connection:
<cfftp action = "close"
connection = "My_query"
stopOnError = "Yes">
<p>Did it succeed? <cfoutput>#cfftp.succeeded#</cfoutput>

Version 7

Comments

It has been said on Oct 5, 2005 at 12:01 PM :

The documentation needs to be more explicit about the "timeout" and the "stopOnError" attributes.
Specifically, what level of processing is halted on these?
The timeout seems to default to something much higher than the 30 seconds (listed in docs) when the action is "PUTFILE."
When the timeout is forced to a low number, and stopOnError is set to "No" , the <CFFTP> tag halts and throws a trappable error, but BOTH the calling cfm, AND the ftp "put" operation (running in the background) continue to process.

It leaves one wondering what the correct way is to use one CFM to initiate multiple file transfers running in parallel.

No screen name said on Jul 27, 2007 at 7:57 PM :

Is there a file size limit that CFFTP putfile can handle? I cannot FTP anything over 100 MB. Any thoughts ?

halL said on Jul 31, 2007 at 8:24 AM :

ColdFusion does not impose any limits, but your FTP server might have a limit.

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