FTP type

This is not a feature that is widely used.

URLs that identify files on FTP servers have a special feature that allows you to also tell the client (curl in this case) which file type the resource is. This is because FTP is a little special and can change mode for a transfer and thus handle the file differently than if it would use another mode.

You tell curl that the FTP resource is an ASCII type by appending ;type=A to the URL. Getting the foo file from the root directory of example.com using ASCII could then be made with:

curl "ftp://example.com/foo;type=A"

curl defaults to binary transfers for FTP, but the URL format allows you to specify the binary type with type=I:

curl "ftp://example.com/foo;type=I"

Finally, you can tell curl that the identified resource is a directory if the type you pass is D:

curl "ftp://example.com/foo;type=D"

…this can then work as an alternative format, instead of ending the path with a trailing slash as mentioned above.