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Using SFXCL /List Workaround to Check for Remote Files

Note: This tip is for use with SecureFX® for Windows and Linux.

In some file transfer scenarios, you might need to know if a particular file or subset of files exists on a remote server. The SFXCL command-line utility that is included in SecureFX for Windows and Linux can provide a complete file listing of a specified folder on a remote system. However, what if you are only interested in knowing if a specific file exists, and you don't want to manually search the results looking for a proverbial needle in a haystack of files and folders?

While SFXCL's /List functionality supports specifying a remote folder path, it doesn't currently support specifying file names, wildcards, or other patterns for filtering output. As a workaround, however, you can use the Find CMD utility to help narrow the results of SFXCL's /List output.

SFXCL's /List functionality returns a list of all files, folders and links that exist in the specified folder on a remote machine. For example:

C:/>SFXCL /List sftp://user:pass@host/target_folder

2012-02-01 09:14:30, 00001: drwxr-x--- 8192 Wed 30-Nov-2011 10:25:03 . (S)
2012-02-01 09:14:30, 00001: drwxr-xr-x 4096 Thu 04-Aug-2011 10:33:55 .. (S)
2012-02-01 09:16:38, 00001: -rw-r--r-- 540 Fri 26-Aug-2011 14:04:41 .bash_profile (S)
2012-02-01 09:16:38, 00001: -rw-r--r-- 98 Thu 30-Sep-2004 09:39:12 file.zip (S)
2011-03-01 15:51:30, 00001: -rw-r--r-- 131954 Wed 09-Feb-2005 14:56:21 rawsession.log (S)
2012-02-01 09:14:30, 00001: drwxr-xr-x 4096 Tue 08-Apr-2008 10:08:38 Scripts (S)
2012-02-01 09:16:38, 00001: -rw-r--r-- 176 Mon 07-Feb-2005 16:34:11 file3.txt (S)
2012-02-01 09:16:38, 00001: -rw-r--r-- 792 Mon 07-Feb-2005 16:34:54 file5.txt (S)
2012-02-01 09:14:30, 00001: drwxr-xr-x 4096 Tue 19-May-2009 14:25:35 vshell-installers (S)
2011-03-01 15:51:30, 00001: -rw-r--r-- 13814 Wed 07-May-2003 07:25:01 session.log (S)
2012-02-01 09:16:38, 00001: -rw-r--r-- 27 Fri 25-Feb-2011 16:07:13 myfile.sh (S)
2012-02-01 09:16:38, 00001: -rw-r--r-- 42483 Wed 03-May-2006 14:55:27 atarfile.tar (S)

The Find CMD utility can be used to exclude directories and links by filtering out all lines that don't match the pattern ": -" (the first permissions field in a long UNIX file listing displays a regular file as "-"). The following example takes the output of the SFXCL /List command and pipes the results to the Find CMD utility which filters out everything except the regular files:

C:\>SFXCL /List sftp://user@host/target_folder 2>&1 | Find ": -"

2012-02-01 09:16:38, 00001: -rw-r--r-- 540 Fri 26-Aug-2011 14:04:41 .bash_profile (S)
2012-02-01 09:16:38, 00001: -rw-r--r-- 98 Thu 30-Sep-2004 09:39:12 file.zip (S)
2011-03-01 15:51:30, 00001: -rw-r--r-- 131954 Wed 09-Feb-2005 14:56:21 rawsession.log (S)
2012-02-01 09:16:38, 00001: -rw-r--r-- 176 Mon 07-Feb-2005 16:34:11 file3.txt (S)
2012-02-01 09:16:38, 00001: -rw-r--r-- 792 Mon 07-Feb-2005 16:34:54 file5.txt (S)
2011-03-01 15:51:30, 00001: -rw-r--r-- 13814 Wed 07-May-2003 07:25:01 session.log (S)
2012-02-01 09:16:38, 00001: -rw-r--r-- 27 Fri 25-Feb-2011 16:07:13 myfile.sh (S)
2012-02-01 09:16:38, 00001: -rw-r--r-- 42483 Wed 03-May-2006 14:55:27 atarfile.tar (S)

Then you can pipe the output of the first Find command to a second instance of the Find command so as to narrow the output further. For example, to display just those files that end in ".log", you would use the following command:

SFXCL /List sftp://user@host/target_folder 2>&1 | Find ": -" | Find ".log "

The Find command returns success if the given pattern matches anything in the input (as indicated when the %ERRORLEVEL% CMD environment variable has a value of zero). For example:

C:/>SFXCL /List sftp://user@host/target_folder 2>&1 | Find ": -" | Find ".log "

2011-03-01 15:51:30, 00001: -rw-r--r-- 13814 Wed 07-May-2003 07:25:01 session.log (S)
2011-03-01 15:51:30, 00001: -rw-r--r-- 131954 Wed 09-Feb-2005 14:56:21 rawsession.log (S)

C:\>echo %ERRORLEVEL%
0

If the Find command does not match the given pattern in the input, a non-success (non-zero) value is returned. For example:

C:/>SFXCL /List sftp://user@host/target_folder 2>&1 | Find ": -" | Find ".png"

C:\>echo %ERRORLEVEL%
1

For additional information on using the SFXCL command-line utility, see the SecureFX Help files or the SFXCL Automation Guide.