FTPFileEntryParser defines the interface for parsing a single FTP file listing and converting that information into an FTPFile instance. Sometimes you will want to parse unusual listing formats, in which case you would create your own implementation of FTPFileEntryParser and if necessary, subclass FTPFile.

Here are some examples showing how to use one of the classes that implement this interface.

The first example shows how to get an iterable list of files in which the more expensive FTPFile objects are not created until needed. This is suitable for paged displays. It requires that a parser object be created beforehand: parser is an object (in the package org.apache.commons.net.ftp.parser) implementing this inteface.

    FTPClient f=FTPClient();
    f.connect(server);
    f.login(username, password);
    FTPFileList list = f.createFileList(directory, parser);
    FTPFileIterator iter = list.iterator();

    while (iter.hasNext()) {
       FTPFile[] files = iter.getNext(25);  // "page size" you want
       //do whatever you want with these files, display them, etc.
       //expensive FTPFile objects not created until needed.
    }
 

The second example uses the revised FTPClient.listFiles() API to pull the whole list from the subfolder subfolder in one call, attempting to automatically detect the parser type. This method, without a parserKey parameter, indicates that autodection should be used.

    FTPClient f=FTPClient();
    f.connect(server);
    f.login(username, password);
    FTPFile[] files = f.listFiles("subfolder");
 

The third example uses the revised FTPClient.listFiles()> API to pull the whole list from the current working directory in one call, but specifying by classname the parser to be used. For this particular parser class, this approach is necessary since there is no way to autodetect this server type.

    FTPClient f=FTPClient();
    f.connect(server);
    f.login(username, password);
    FTPFile[] files = f.listFiles(
      "org.apache.commons.net.ftp.parser.EnterpriseUnixFTPFileEntryParser",
      ".");
 

The fourth example uses the revised FTPClient.listFiles() API to pull a single file listing in an arbitrary directory in one call, specifying by KEY the parser to be used, in this case, VMS.

    FTPClient f=FTPClient();
    f.connect(server);
    f.login(username, password);
    FTPFile[] files = f.listFiles("VMS", "subfolder/foo.java");