FlashFXP Forums - View Single Post - creates double-spaces in a file when I download from server using FlashFXP.

bigstar · 12-21-2013, 09:40 AM

After this long winded thread I thought it would make sense to add a re-cap.

When using ASCII transfer mode the file EOL (end of line) characters are swapped by the FTP server. If the FTP server is UNIX then CR is typically swapped to CR/LF, depending on the FTP server software and the way it is configured, in some configurations switching to ASCII mode may not actually do any conversion at all.

Some UNIX based FTP servers have been known to mangle the EOL characters especially when the file content doesn't use the UNIX style EOL character, if the remote file is Windows formatted EOL then it could result in replacing CR/LF with CR/CR/LF.

Resuming files transferred in ASCII mode can lead to corruption due to the way the EOL characters are handled and converted by the FTP server.

If you're using a text editor such as NotePad++ then using ASCII mode is not necessary and you may have better results using BINARY mode for everything.

The only time ASCII mode might be necessary is if you're transferring configuration files between a FTP server running on UNIX (or other) to WINDOWS for use with some software that requires the EOL to be specific to the operating system.
It is becoming more and more common for FTP servers to use BINARY mode for everything.

When transferring files using the SFTP over SSH protocol FlashFXP will always transfer the file in BINARY mode.

12-21-2013, 09:40 AM
bigstar FlashFXP Developer Join Date: Oct 2001 Posts: 8,012	After this long winded thread I thought it would make sense to add a re-cap. When using ASCII transfer mode the file EOL (end of line) characters are swapped by the FTP server. If the FTP server is UNIX then CR is typically swapped to CR/LF, depending on the FTP server software and the way it is configured, in some configurations switching to ASCII mode may not actually do any conversion at all. Some UNIX based FTP servers have been known to mangle the EOL characters especially when the file content doesn't use the UNIX style EOL character, if the remote file is Windows formatted EOL then it could result in replacing CR/LF with CR/CR/LF. Resuming files transferred in ASCII mode can lead to corruption due to the way the EOL characters are handled and converted by the FTP server. If you're using a text editor such as NotePad++ then using ASCII mode is not necessary and you may have better results using BINARY mode for everything. The only time ASCII mode might be necessary is if you're transferring configuration files between a FTP server running on UNIX (or other) to WINDOWS for use with some software that requires the EOL to be specific to the operating system. It is becoming more and more common for FTP servers to use BINARY mode for everything. When transferring files using the SFTP over SSH protocol FlashFXP will always transfer the file in BINARY mode.