This tab of the FTP action specifies file transfer information.

 

Action: The action to perform (Put [upload], Get [download], List [dir], or Delete).

 

Transfer type: Whether to transfer as ASCII or binary.  Use ASCII transfer only when transferring between Windows and Unix systems to convert line endings between CR/LF and CR.  Use binary transfer for all other transfers (do not use ASCII for files containing non-text data as this can corrupt the destination file).

 

Note: Transfer type does not apply for SFTP transfers and will be ignored.

 

Retries: The number of times to retry the FTP operation if a retryable timeout occurs while transferring a file (0 or blank for no retries).

 

Local folder: The local folder to transfer from when putting or to transfer to when getting (required for Get and Put actions).

 

Note: For backward compatibility, this can also be a local path+filename or mask to upload when putting (if the filename contains wildcards [? or * characters], all files matching the wildcard in the specified directory will be uploaded).

 

Remote folder: Path on the server to transfer the file to when putting or to transfer to when getting (optional [defaults to the home directory if not specified]).

 

Note: Some FTP servers (for instance, VAX/VMS) may require the Do not use directory as reported by server option on the Server tab to be checked.

 

Files to process: Used to specify files or folders to specifically include or exclude (optional).

 

Include subdirectories (recursive): Determines if subdirectories will be searched recursively for copying, synchronizing, and deleting.

 

Copy only files that have changed (incremental copy): Enables incremental copying of files.  Before copying a file, if this option is checked, the action compares the size (unless performing an ASCII transfer) and timestamp of the source and destination files and only copies the files if the file does not exist in the destination folder or the size or timestamps are different.  Any files that are already up-to-date in the destination will not be copied.  This option also takes into account daylight saving time differences (files that are exactly one hour difference will not be copied).

 

Note: The FTP server must support the SIZE command to retrieve file sizes and the MDTM command to retrieve and set file timestamps in order to perform incremental copying.

 

Delete destination files and folders that no longer exist (synchronize): If checked, any files or subfolders in the destination folder that do not exist in the source folder will be deleted from the destination folder.  Use in conjunction with incremental copy to synchronize the contents of two folders.  The Include/Exclude fields are also used to include or exclude files from the purge operation.  For the Delete action, check this option to also delete empty subfolders.

 

Delete empty root destination folder: If checked, the root destination folder will also be deleted if all files were deleted when synchronizing.  For the Delete action, checking this option indicates that the root folder should be deleted too if all files and subfolders were deleted.

 

Note: Be very careful when using this option, as many files can be quickly deleted when this option is specified.  It is advisable to use the Do not copy option when testing a synchronize operation to show which files would be removed.

 

Do not copy: If checked, no files or folders will be copied, synchronized, or deleted, but any enabled logging will be displayed and a count of files that would have been copied, synchronized, or deleted will be logged.  Useful for debugging purposes.

 

Logging: Level of logging to perform on network communications or file transfers:

 

Log every x percent: If Logging is set to Filenames + Progress and a value between 1 and 99 is entered in this field, a progress update will be logged every n percent of completion for each file.  If the field is empty or file sizes are not available, a progress update will be logged every 5 seconds.

 

Note: The FTP action will create the destination folder for a file if it doesn't already exist.