FileZilla server returns folder name in NLST response

Question

I have made some code that connects to an FTP server.

My problem is that I against some servers get both folder and filename, e.g. myfolder\myfile.txt, and others just get myfile.txt.

var request = (FtpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("ftp://ftp.example.com/myfolder"); 
request.Method = WebRequestMethods.Ftp.ListDirectory;
var ftpResponse = (FtpWebResponse) request.GetResponse();
var ftpResponeStream = ftpResponse.GetResponseStream();
var ftpStreamReader = new StreamReader(ftpResponeStream);

string line;
while ((line = ftpStreamReader.ReadLine()) != null)
{
    Console.WriteLine(line);
}

I would prefer that I just get myfile.txt because that is how the real code should run, but I don't know, if this is a FileZilla setting or something else.

Answer 1

The URL for the ListDirectory method should end with a slash, in general.

Without a slash, results tend to be uncertain, largely depending on the FTP server implementation.

(FtpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("ftp://ftp.example.com/myfolder/"); 

---

With a URL like ftp://ftp.example.com/parent/folder, without the slash, the FtpWebRequest does:

CWD /parent
NLST folder

In this case, some FTP servers include the folder in the listing, while some do not.

While with a slash, the FtpWebRequest does:

CWD /parent/folder
NLST

In this case, the listing includes bare filenames.