I want to fetch the name of the latest updated folder at particular path of FTP server - windows

Question

Using this command I am able to get the latest updated folder in Unix
ls -t1 | head -1
But how can I get the same in FTP server from Windows?
I want to get the name of the latest updated folder at particular path of FTP server. Could any one please help?

Answer 1

There's no easy way to do this with Windows shell commands.
You can:
Use ftp.exe to execute ls /path c:\local\path\listing.txt to save a directory listing to a text file.
Exit ftp.exe.
Parse the listing and find the latest files. Not an easy task for Windows shell commands.
It would be a way easier with a PowerShell script.
You can use FtpWebRequest class. Though it does not have an easy way to retrieve structured directory listing either. It offers only ListDirectoryDetails and GetDateTimestamp methods.
See Retrieving creation date of file (FTP).
Or use a 3rd-party library for the task.
For example with WinSCP .NET assembly you can do:
param (
$sessionUrl = "ftp://user:mypassword#example.com/",
$remotePath = "/path"
)
# Load WinSCP .NET assembly
Add-Type -Path "WinSCPnet.dll"
# Setup session options
$sessionOptions = New-Object WinSCP.SessionOptions
$sessionOptions.ParseUrl($sessionUrl)
# Connect
$session = New-Object WinSCP.Session
$session.Open($sessionOptions)
# Get list of files in the directory
$directoryInfo = $session.ListDirectory($remotePath)
# Select the most recent file
$latest =
$directoryInfo.Files |
Where-Object { -Not $_.IsDirectory } |
Sort-Object LastWriteTime -Descending |
Select-Object -First 1
# Any file at all?
if ($latest -eq $Null)
{
Write-Host "No file found"
}
else
{
Write-Host "The latest file is $latest"
}
See full example Downloading the most recent file.
(I'm the author of WinSCP)