Abstract: While there are a variety of FTP commands, the following is a selected list of the most common commands. Note that these commands are not relevant to graphical FTP programs such as FUGU or WINSCP

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I. Opening and closing connection

• ftp - starts an FTP session
• open hostname - connects to the specified host
• close - closes the connection (but not the FTP session!)
• quit - terminates the FTP session

II. Browsing on a remote machine

• dir - gives a full directory listing on the remote machine
• dir test* - displays only files and directories whose name begins with "test..."
• ls - same as dir, but provides a simplified listing of filenames

III. Directories in FTP

• pwd - prints the name of the current remote directory
• cd remote-directory - changes working directory on remote host
• cd .. - moves up one level in the directory structure on the remote host
• lcd directory - changes the default directory on local host

IV. Types of files

• binary - type this command at the FTP prompt to set binary mode before transferring binary files
• For example, use binary mode with the following types of files:
  • SPSS System files
  • SAS Transport files
  • Stata Datasets
  • Graphics files (e.g., *.gif, *.jpg, *.bmp, etc.)
  • Microsoft Office documents (*.doc, *.xls, etc.)
• ascii - type this command at the FTP prompt to set ASCII mode before transferring text files.
• Use the ASCII mode with any of the following:
  • Raw Data (e.g. *.dat or *.txt, codebooks, or other plain text documents)
  • SPSS Portable files
  • HTML files

V. Transferring files

• get test - copies file "test" from remote to local host (from current remote directory to current local directory)
• mget test.* data.dbf - copies files beginning with "test" and the file named data.dbf from remote to local host
• put test - copies file "test" from local to remote host. You musth have write access to the remove host for this to work.
• mput test.* data.dbf - copies files beginning with "test" and the file named data.dbf from local to remote host
• quit - closes connection and terminates FTP session
• If a file name contains spaces (e.g. on your Windows system) you should type the file name in quotation marks " ",
  but it is strongly recommended to rename such files before FTPing them.

VI. Other Commands

• get test "| more" - displays file "test"
  To make sure you want a document, you can display it with the more command and see the file screen by screen (using the space bar) BEFORE you get a file. To exit out of more , type q.
• prompt - turns off prompting for individual files when using the mget or mput commands.
• If you have mistyped your username or password, use the user command to re-login.
• For a list of all FTP commands type ? at the ftp> prompt.
• For a brief explanation of a command, type help, leave a space,and type the command itself.