FTP and FTPS

PHP 3, PHP 4, PHP 5. ftps:// since PHP 4.3.0

ftp://example.com/pub/file.txt
ftp://user:password@example.com/pub/file.txt
ftps://example.com/pub/file.txt
ftps://user:password@example.com/pub/file.txt

Allows read access to existing files and creation of new files via FTP. If the server does not support passive mode ftp, the connection will fail.

You can open files for either reading or writing, but not both simultaneously. If the remote file already exists on the ftp server and you attempt to open it for writing but have not specified the context option overwrite, the connection will fail. If you need to overwrite existing files over ftp, specify the overwrite option in the context and open the file for writing. Alternatively, you can use the FTP extension.

Appending: As of PHP 5.0.0 files may be appended via the ftp:// URL wrapper. In prior versions, attempting to append to a file via ftp:// will result in failure.

ftps:// was introduced in PHP 4.3.0. It is the same as ftp://, but attempts to negotiate a secure connection with the ftp server. If the server does not support SSL, then the connection falls back to regular unencrypted ftp.

Note: FTPS is supported starting from PHP 4.3.0, if you have compiled in support for OpenSSL.

Table O-4. Wrapper Summary

Attribute	PHP 4	PHP 5
Restricted by allow_url_fopen	Yes	Yes
Allows Reading	Yes	Yes
Allows Writing	Yes (new files only)	Yes (new files/existing files with `overwrite`)
Allows Appending	No	Yes
Allows Simultaneous Reading and Writing	No	No
Supports stat()	No	As of PHP 5.0.0: filesize(), filetype(), file_exists(), is_file(), and is_dir() elements only. As of PHP 5.1.0: filemtime().
Supports unlink()	No	Yes
Supports rename()	No	Yes
Supports mkdir()	No	Yes
Supports rmdir()	No	Yes

Table O-5. Context options (as of PHP 5.0.0)

Name	Usage	Default
`overwrite`	Allow overwriting of already existing files on remote server. Applies to write mode (uploading) only.	`FALSE` (Disabled)
`resume_pos`	File offset at which to begin transfer. Applies to read mode (downloading) only.	0 (Beginning of File)
`proxy` (PHP 5.1.0 or greater)	Proxy FTP request via http proxy server. Applies to file read operations only. Ex: `tcp://squid.example.com:8000`

Underlying socket stream context options: Additional context options may be supported by the underlying transport For ftp:// streams, refer to context options for the tcp:// transport. For ftps:// streams, refer to context options for the ssl:// transport.