The Xceed FTP Library is a software component that provides developers with a host of useful functions for sending, receiving and manipulating files on a remote FTP server via the FTP protocol.

The FTP protocol

　　The FTP protocol is a relatively simple protocol that allows access to a remote file system in a standard way. It offers commands for manipulating and navigating remote directories, manipulating remote files (rename, delete, etc.), and transferring files. It is designed to be used interactively by human users as well as by automated processes.

　　FTP is the de facto protocol used for transferring files on the Internet. Huge public software archives use FTP. Many organisations use FTP as a means to transfer data files between offices. Software companies often provide updates via an FTP server. Even with the emergence of HTTP, used to fetch files from a server, FTP is still widely used.

FTP support

　　The Xceed FTP Library provides access to the complete functionality of the FTP protocol and is firewall friendly.

Features

• ActiveX Technology
  
  • A single fully self-contained COM object and ActiveX control written with ATL 3.0
  • Requires no external DLLs, MFC DLLs or runtime libraries other than Winsock-2, which is found on all Windows operating systems after Windows 95 revision A.
  • Both single-threaded (STA) and multi-threaded apartment (MTA) model design
  • Instantiate the component dynamically without putting it on a form
  • Supports multiple instances running simultaneously
  • Optional background processing so your code can continue execution while the Xceed FTP Library is working
  • Supports both Unicode and Ansi in one single control. The library automatically uses Unicode API calls for best performance when running on Windows NT, 2000 or XP.
  • Supports notification by Events or by Custom Interface Advising for maximum efficiency
  • ActiveX control interface has all constants, enumerations and types built-in. Code completion, property categories, help strings and context-sensitive F1-help fully supported
  • Works with all 32-bit development environments that can use ActiveX controls, including VB, VC++, Delphi, C++ Builder, VFP, Office, PB, VO, Web scripting languages, ASP and DCOM projects
  • Optional ability to function as an AIC (Application Integration Component) for BizTalk Server
• FTP support and major operations
  
  • RFC 959, 1123 and 1579 compliant
  • Fully uses Winsock-2 optimizations for best performance
  • SOCKS Firewall Proxy support for performing FTP operations across intranet firewalls
  • Passive mode
  • Supports all standard FTP commands as well as custom FTP commands
  • Send and receive files to/from disk or directly to/from memory buffers
  • Send, receive or list entire directory structures recursively
  • QuickFTP interface for transfering one or more files with only a single line of code
  • Server directory listings are available through events or via easy to manipulate item collections
  • Automatic directory listing parser or create your own custom parser for unknown listing formats
  • Resume file transfers from any offset
  • Streaming support. Send or receive data as it becomes available
  • Rename or change file paths as they are being sent or received
  • Automatic logging of FTP activity
• Application-component interactivity
  
  • Operations can be aborted at any time
  • Provides status report events on a file-by-file basis as well as on the entire operation being performed, with percentages, byte and file counts. Easily add any kind of progress bar to your app.
  • Events are triggered whenever a file is being sent, received, listed, etc.
  • Notifies your application when and why a specific file cannot be processed.
  • Notifies your application when a file being received is about to overwrite an existing file. Your application can then choose to overwrite it or skip it.
  • Provides complete file information for the current file being processed.
  • Your application receives info such as the amount of time a file took to transfer, the achieved transfer rate, and other info as it becomes available.
  • Create your own custom filters in order to process or exclude files based on size or date
  • Automatic full yield so other applications do not halt during processing.
• Other operations
  
  • Specify FTP server as IP address or host name
  • Allows sending files that are currently open for write operations by other processes
  • Supports long filenames, UNC paths and Unicode filenames
  • Specify files to process using wildcards
• Documentation and samples
  
  • Complete, comprehensive documentation provided in an MSDN style HTML format which is fully context-sensitive so that pressing F1 on a keyword in your IDE opens up the manual to the relevant topic.
  • Fully commented sample applications for various languages, including VB, Delphi, Visual C++ and Active Server Pages