General notes
You can use WhiteRaccoon to interact with FTP servers in one of two ways: either make a simple request and send it right away to the FTP server or add several requests to a queue and the queue will send them one by one in the order in which they were added.
WhiteRaccoon supports the following FTP operations:
- Download file
- Upload file (if the file is already on the server the delegate will be asked if the file should be overwritten)
- Delete file
- Delete directory (only if the directory is empty)
- Create directory
- List directory contents (returns an array of dictionaries, each dictionary has the keys described here)
IMPORTANT: In order for the library to compile and run, you have to include CFNetwork framework into your project.
Simple usage
Download file
- download
{
//we don't autorelease the object so that it will be around when the callback gets called
//this is not a good practice, in real life development you should use a retain property to store a reference to the request
WRRequestDownload * downloadFile = [[WRRequestDownload alloc] init];
downloadFile.delegate = self;
//the path needs to be absolute to the FTP root folder.
//full URL would be ftp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/space.jpg
downloadFile.path = @"/space.jpg";
//for anonymous login just leave the username and password nil
downloadFile.hostname = @"xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx";
downloadFile.username = @"myuser";
downloadFile.password = @"mypass";
//we start the request
[downloadFile start];
}
-(void) requestCompleted:(WRRequest *) request{
//called after 'request' is completed successfully
NSLog(@"%@ completed!", request);
//we cast the request to download request
WRRequestDownload * downloadFile = (WRRequestDownload *)request;
//we get the image from the data
UIImage * image = [UIImage imageWithData:downloadFile.receivedData];
}
-(void) requestFailed:(WRRequest *) request{
//called after 'request' ends in error
//we can print the error message
NSLog(@"%@", request.error.message);
}
Upload file
- upload
{
//the upload request needs the input data to be NSData
//so we first convert the image to NSData
UIImage * ourImage = [UIImage imageNamed:@"space.jpg"];
NSData * ourImageData = UIImageJPEGRepresentation(ourImage, 100);
//we create the upload request
//we don't autorelease the object so that it will be around when the callback gets called
//this is not a good practice, in real life development you should use a retain property to store a reference to the request
WRRequestUpload * uploadImage = [[WRRequestUpload alloc] init];
uploadImage.delegate = self;
//for anonymous login just leave the username and password nil
uploadImage.hostname = @"xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx";
uploadImage.username = @"myuser";
uploadImage.password = @"mypass";
//we set our data
uploadImage.sentData = ourImageData;
//the path needs to be absolute to the FTP root folder.
//full URL would be ftp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/space.jpg
uploadImage.path = @"/space.jpg";
//we start the request
[uploadImage start];
}
-(void) requestCompleted:(WRRequest *) request{
//called if 'request' is completed successfully
NSLog(@"%@ completed!", request);
}
-(void) requestFailed:(WRRequest *) request{
//called after 'request' ends in error
//we can print the error message
NSLog(@"%@", request.error.message);
}
-(BOOL) shouldOverwriteFileWithRequest:(WRRequest *)request {
//if the file (ftp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/space.jpg) is already on the FTP server,the delegate is asked if the file should be overwritten
//'request' is the request that intended to create the file
return YES;
}
List directory contents
The file dictionary has several keys that describe most of the properties a file can have, from name to size. For a complete list of keys that the file dictionary has have a look here
- listDirectoryContents
{
//we don't autorelease the object so that it will be around when the callback gets called
//this is not a good practice, in real life development you should use a retain property to store a reference to the request
WRRequestListDirectory * listDir = [[WRRequestListDirectory alloc] init];
listDir.delegate = self;
//the path needs to be absolute to the FTP root folder.
//if we want to list the root folder we let the path nil or /
//full URL would be ftp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/
listDir.path = @"/";
listDir.hostname = @"xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx";
listDir.username = @"myuser";
listDir.password = @"mypass";
[listDir start];
}
-(void) requestCompleted:(WRRequest *) request{
//called after 'request' is completed successfully
NSLog(@"%@ completed!", request);
//we cast the request to list request
WRRequestListDirectory * listDir = (WRRequestListDirectory *)request;
//we print each of the files name
for (NSDictionary * file in listDir.filesInfo) {
NSLog(@"%@", [file objectForKey:(id)kCFFTPResourceName]);
}
}
-(void) requestFailed:(WRRequest *) request{
//called if 'request' ends in error
//we can print the error message
NSLog(@"%@", request.error.message);
}
Delete file or directory
- deleteFileOrDirectory
{
//we don't autorelease the object so that it will be around when the callback gets called
//this is not a good practice, in real life development you should use a retain property to store a reference to the request
WRRequestDelete * deleteDir = [[WRRequestDelete alloc] init];
//the path needs to be absolute to the FTP root folder.
//if we are want to delete a directory we have to end the path with / and make sure the directory is empty
//full URL would be ftp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/dummyDir/
deleteDir.path = @"/dummyDir/";
deleteDir.hostname = @"xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx";
deleteDir.username = @"myuser";
deleteDir.password = @"mypass";
//we start the request
[deleteDir start];
}
Create directory
- createDirectory
{
//we don't autorelease the object so that it will be around when the callback gets called
//this is not a good practice, in real life development you should use a retain property to store a reference to the request
WRRequestCreateDirectory * createDir = [[WRRequestCreateDirectory alloc] init];
//we set self as delegate, we must implement WRRequestDelegate
createDir.delegate = self;
//the path needs to be absolute to the FTP root folder.
//full URL would be ftp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/dummyDir/
createDir.path = @"/dummyDir/";
createDir.hostname = @"xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx";
createDir.username = @"myuser";
createDir.password = @"mypass";
//we start the request
[createDir start];
}
-(void) requestCompleted:(WRRequest *) request{
//called if 'request' is completed successfully
NSLog(@"%@ completed!", request);
}
-(void) requestFailed:(WRRequest *) request{
//called if 'request' ends in error
//we can print the error message
NSLog(@"%@", request.error.message);
}
Queue usage
Here is how you can use a queue request to create a directory and then add an image in it.
- upload
{
//we alloc and init the our request queue
//we don't autorelease the object so that it will be around when the callback gets called
WRRequestQueue * requestsQueue = [[WRRequestQueue alloc] init];
//we set the delegate to self
requestsQueue.delegate = self;
//we set the credentials and hostname
//every request added to the queue will use them if it doesn't have its own credentials and/or hostname
//for anonymous login just leave the username and password nil
requestsQueue.hostname = @"xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx";
requestsQueue.username = @"myuser";
requestsQueue.password = @"mypass";
//and now, we start to create our requests and add them to the queue
//the requests will be executed in the order in which they were added, one by one
//we first create a directory
//we can safely autorelease the request object because the queue takes ownership of it in addRequest: method
WRRequestCreateDirectory * createDir = [[[WRRequestCreateDirectory alloc] init] autorelease];
//the path needs to be absolute to the FTP root folder.
//full URL would be ftp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/dummyDir/
createDir.path = @"/dummyDir/";
[requestsQueue addRequest:createDir];
//then we upload the file in our newly created directory
//the upload request needs the input data to be NSData
//so we first convert the image to NSData
UIImage * ourImage = [UIImage imageNamed:@"space.jpg"];
NSData * ourImageData = UIImageJPEGRepresentation(ourImage, 100);
//we create the upload request
WRRequestUpload * uploadImage = [[[WRRequestUpload alloc] init] autorelease];
uploadImage.sentData = ourImageData;
//we put the file in the directory we created with the previous request
//the path needs to be absolute to the FTP root folder.
//full URL would be ftp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/dummyDir/image.jpg
uploadImage.path = @"/dummyDir/image.jpg";
[requestsQueue addRequest:uploadImage];
//we start the request queue
[requestsQueue start];
}
-(void) queueCompleted:(WRRequestQueue *)queue {
//this will get called when all the requests are done
//even if one or more requests end in error, this will still be called after the rest are completed
NSLog(@"Done.");
}
-(void) requestCompleted:(WRRequest *) request{
//called after 'request' is completed successfully
NSLog(@"%@ completed!", request);
}
-(void) requestFailed:(WRRequest *) request{
//called after 'request' ends in error
//we can print the error message
NSLog(@"%@", request.error.message);
}
-(BOOL) shouldOverwriteFileWithRequest:(WRRequest *)request {
//if the file (ftp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/dummyDir/image.jpg) is already on the FTP server,the delegate is asked if the file should be overwritten
//'request' is the request that intended to create the file
return YES;
}