Various styles are available using the standard shell style mechanism,
described in
The zsh/zutil Module. Briefly, the
command ‘zstyle ':zftp:*' style value ...’.
defines the style to have value value; more than one value may be
given, although that is not useful in the cases described here. These
values will then be used throughout the zftp function system. For more
precise control, the first argument, which gives a pattern that matches contexts in which the
style applies, can be modified to include a particular function, as for
example ‘:zftp:zfget’: the style will then have the given value only
in the zfget function, and will override styles set under ‘:zftp:*’.
Note that only the top level function name, as called by
the user, is used; calling of lower level functions is transparent to the
user. Hence modifications to the title bar in zftp_chpwd use the
contexts :zftp:zfopen, :zftp:zfcd, etc., depending where it was
called from. The following styles are understood:
progressControls the way that zftp_progress reports on the progress of a
transfer. If empty, unset, or ‘none’, no progress report is made; if
‘bar’ a growing bar of inverse video is shown; if ‘percent’ (or any
other string, though this may change in future), the percentage of the file
transferred is shown. The bar meter requires that the width of the
terminal be available via the $COLUMNS parameter (normally this is set
automatically). If the size of the file being transferred is not
available, bar and percent meters will simply show the number of
bytes transferred so far.
When zfinit is run, if this style is not defined for the context
:zftp:*, it will be set to ‘bar’.
updateSpecifies the minimum time interval between updates of the progress meter
in seconds. No update is made unless new data has been received, so the
actual time interval is limited only by $ZFTP_TIMEOUT.
As described for progress, zfinit will force this to default to 1.
remote-globIf set to ‘1’, ‘yes’ or ‘true’, filename generation (globbing) is
performed on the remote machine instead of by zsh itself; see below.
titlebarIf set to ‘1’, ‘yes’ or ‘true’, zftp_chpwd will put the remote host and
remote directory into the titlebar of terminal emulators such as xterm or
sun-cmd that allow this.
As described for progress, zfinit will force this to default to 1.
chpwdIf set to ‘1’ ‘yes’ or ‘true’, zftp_chpwd will call the function
chpwd when a connection is closed. This is useful if the remote host
details were put into the terminal title bar by zftp_chpwd and your
usual chpwd also modifies the title bar.
When zfinit is run, it will determine whether chpwd exists and if
so it will set the default value for the style to 1 if none exists
already.
Note that there is also an associative array zfconfig which contains
values used by the function system. This should not be modified or
overwritten.
The commands for retrieving files usually perform filename generation
(globbing) on their arguments; this can be turned off by passing the option
-G to each of the commands. Normally this operates by retrieving a
complete list of files for the directory in question, then matching these
locally against the pattern supplied. This has the advantage that the full
range of zsh patterns (respecting the setting of the option
EXTENDED_GLOB) can be used. However, it means that the directory part
of a filename will not be expanded and must be given exactly. If the
remote server does not support the UNIX directory semantics, directory
handling is problematic and it is recommended that globbing only be used
within the current directory. The list of files in the current directory,
if retrieved, will be cached, so that subsequent globs in the same
directory without an intervening zfcd are much faster.
If the remote-glob style (see above) is set, globbing is instead
performed on the remote host: the server is asked for a list of matching
files. This is highly dependent on how the server is implemented, though
typically UNIX servers will provide support for basic glob patterns. This
may in some cases be faster, as it avoids retrieving the entire list of
directory contents.
As described for the zfopen command, a subsequent zfopen with no
parameters will reopen the connection to the last host (this includes
connections made with the zfanon command). Opened in this fashion, the
connection starts in the default remote directory and will remain open
until explicitly closed.
Automatic re-opening is also available. If a connection is not currently
open and a command requiring a connection is given, the last connection is
implicitly reopened. In this case the directory which was current when the
connection was closed again becomes the current directory (unless, of
course, the command given changes it). Automatic reopening will also take
place if the connection was close by the remote server for whatever reason
(e.g. a timeout). It is not available if the -1 option to zfopen
or zfanon was used.
Furthermore, if the command issued is a file transfer, the connection will
be closed after the transfer is finished, hence providing a one-shot mode
for transfers. This does not apply to directory changing or listing
commands; for example a zfdir may reopen a connection but will leave it
open. Also, automatic closure will only ever happen in the same command as
automatic opening, i.e a zfdir directly followed by a zfget will
never close the connection automatically.
Information about the previous connection is given by the zfstat
function. So, for example, if that reports:
Session: default Not connected. Last session: ftp.bar.com:/pub/textfiles
then the command zfget file.txt will attempt to reopen a connection to
ftp.bar.com, retrieve the file /pub/textfiles/file.txt, and
immediately close the connection again. On the other hand, zfcd ..
will open the connection in the directory /pub and leave it open.
Note that all the above is local to each session; if you return to a previous session, the connection for that session is the one which will be reopened.
Completion of local and remote files, directories, sessions and bookmarks
is supported. The older, compctl-style completion is defined when
zfinit is called; support for the new widget-based completion system is
provided in the function Completion/Zsh/Command/_zftp, which should be
installed with the other functions of the completion system and hence
should automatically be available.