I realize this should be the easiest thing in the world but…
How do I copy and paste (thus duplicating) a folder. That’s it. I’m stumped. I have to copy and paste a folder that contains a cgi document, so downloading it onto my desktop, renaming it, and re-uploading is not efficient because i would have to change the chmod options for each folder and document.
I can, of course, just go straight to cpanel and copy and paste a folder there (which works fine), but the whole point of using SmartFTP was to make updating easier.
FTP commands (that is, the stuff that’s going on beneath the GUI in FTP clients) are essentially unix command-line stuff, so it seems as though you’d just have to issue a unix cp command, but as far as I can tell, this is either unsupported by the FTP command set, or else just not permitted on most servers.
I’m not sure that what you’re attempting is possible via FTP; it would be possible if you can get remote terminal access (and the necessary rights).
You can copy directly from one ftp server to another ftp server, so technically you should be able to have two simultaneous sessions to your ftp server and copy from one to the other, thus doing a direct server to server transfer instead of downloading to local disk.
I can’t tell, but it looks like that will still entail moving the bytes down the pipe and back up again, even if no whole files are cached on the client machine.
hmmm… well one reason why that might not work (the same why copying to my desktop, renaming, then back to my ftp doesn’t work) is that some bits have to be uploaded in ascii mode, while others in binary mode. This wouldn’t be a problem if I could just copy and paste. I think copying from one ftp to the next would result in the same problem, it’d have to transfer in either ascii or binary, instead of just creating an exact duplicate.
Don’t forget: FTP is a fairly dumb protocol created in the early 1980s. Drag and drop was 10 years in the future when they designed it. It was designed for file transfer (hence the name) between machines, not remote management of files on a single machine.
Apples and oranges, LSLGuy. As you say FTP is a protocol for transferring files between machines.
Drag and drop is a User Interface tool. Any program with a user interface that involves moving things from one place to another could, if the programmer so chooses, implement drag and drop.
In fact, newcomb being, if you upgrade your Windows to Windows XP, you’ll find that FTP is built into Windows Explorer, along with full drag and drop functionality. I use it myself all the time in maintaining my company’s website.
I do have windows XP, and I didn’t realize FTP is built into windows explorer. Keep in mind that I’m looking for “copy and paste” functionality, not drag and drop.
I’m not looking to transfer a file, but simply duplicate it. Whenever I use the transfer method for this purpose, things get sticky. Chmod attributes get changed and some files need to be transferred in ascii mode while others in binary within the same file that I want to duplicate.
If I could simply right click/copy, go into a different directory, right click/paste, thus pasting an exact copy of the folder, life would be good. I suppose there is a good chance windows explorer can do this. I’ll try and check it out.
well, it seems windows explorer FTP can only transfer in binary. This isn’t a problem now, since I’m just looking to duplicate a folder.
Strangely, while I can “right click/copy,” I can NOT “right click/paste” immediately afterwards. I CAN copy to a directory on my computer (thus downloading the folder I want to copy). However, this is a type of transfer and wouldn’t work for my purposes.
I suppose “copy and paste” just wasn’t meant for FTP, which is a shame because I was excited about how easy it was to update without having to go into cpanel x myself and do it there.