How to Select Files with Wildcard and Compare

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3D-FTP has a Select Files menu that is accessible via the Commands menu at the top and via the file list right-click popup menus. This menu contains following commands:

Select All
Select all files and folders in the active file list. You can also use Click Ctrl-A hot key to access this command.


Select All Files
Select all files in the active file list. Folders and drives are not selected.


Select All Folders
Select all folders in the active file list. Files and drives are not selected.


Select with Wildcards
This command opens a window where you can enter wildcard selection criteria. The selection is made to active file list.

The wildcard selection criteria use the wildcard characters * and ? to create criteria:

* character matches any character string
? character matches any single letter or digit

Example: To select all ZIP files, enter the *.zip wildcard selection criteria. The previously-entered criteria are available in the drop-down list.

Examples:

*.exe	Select all files with the .exe extension
*.doc	Select all files with the .doc extension
log*.zip	Select files like log.zip, logfile.zip, log2008.zip
*.htm*	Select all files with the .htm and .html extension
*.jpg; *.gif, *.png	Select image files with the .jpg, .gif or .png extensions

Select with Compare

Select with Compare is the most advanced selection method of all the above. It makes selections by comparing local and remote file listings; therefore, this command is only available when you are connected to the remote FTP Server. The command is most useful when you need to synchronize the local/remote folders by uploading only changed or missing files.

When you select this command when the local file list is active, the following options are available:

Select files that do not exist on remote
Selects all files that do not exist on the remote folder. The filename comparison is case sensitive.

Select files that do exist on remote
Selects all files that do exist on the remote folder. The filename comparison is case sensitive. The extra options below are combined with this rule with the logical AND operator.

and are newer than corresponding ones on remote
The full rule becomes: Selects all files that do exist on the remote folder and are newer than corresponding files on the remote folder. So the matching file is located in the remote file listing and its modification date is compared to the local file's modification date. If the local file is newer, it is selected. If the file has the same datestamp, then it is not selected.

and are older than corresponding ones on remote
The full rule becomes: Selects all files that do exist on the remote folder and are older than the corresponding files on the remote folder. So the matching file is located in the remote file listing and its modification date is compared to the local file's modification date. If the local file is older, it is selected. If the file has the same datestamp, then it is not selected.

NOTICE! Uploaded files normally get the date/timestamp from the remote server system clock. You can change this with the Set uploaded file time with MDTM command option found in Site Manager. Read more here.

and have different size than corresponding ones on remote
The full rule becomes: Selects all files that do exist on the remote folder and have a different size than corresponding files on the remote folder. So the matching file is located in the remote file listing and its size is compared to the local file size. If the sizes are different, it is selected.

NOTICE! File sizes might be different even if you have just uploaded the file to the remote server. This often happens with ASCII files like html and txt files because the remote server is often UNIX-based and stores ASCII files in a different format: the linefeed is a single character in UNIX boxes, whereas it is two characters in Windows machines. So the same file is smaller when uploaded to a UNIX Ftp server than the exact same file on the local hard disk.


How to select new and changed files to synchronize local and remote folders

You can use the Select with Compare command to select only changed and new local files to synchronize the remote folder contents to match local folder contents. Select the following check boxes:

Select local files that...

   X do not exist on remote
   X do exist on remote
   X and are newer than corresponding ones on remote

By doing this, all new and updated files are selected on the local file list. You can then upload selected files via the menu Command > Upload or add them to the queue with the menu Command > Add File(s) to Queue.