Webbots, Spiders, and Screen Scrapers

PHP and FTP

PHP provides built-in functions that closely resemble standard FTP commands. In addition to transferring files, PHP allows your scripts to perform many administrative functions. Table 13-1 lists the most useful FTP commands supported by PHP.

Table 13-1. Common FTP Commands Supported by PHP

FTP Function (Where $ftp Is the FTP File Stream)	Usage
ftp_cdup($ftp);	Makes the parent directory the current directory
ftp_chdir ($ftp, "directory/path")	Changes the current directory
ftp_delete ($ftp, "file_name")	Deletes a file
ftp_get ($ftp, "local file", "remote file", MODE)	Copies the remote file to the local file where MODE indicates if the remote file is FTP_ASCII or FTP_BINARY
ftp_mkdir($ftp, "directory name")	Creates a new directory
ftp_rename($ftp, ...