# Problem with Net::FTP#mtime

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problem-with-net-ftp-mtime/102432>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [August 15, 2006, 2:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problem-with-net-ftp-mtime/102432 "2006-08-15T14:17:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![danielb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@danielb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/danielb)\
**Post date:** [August 15, 2006, 2:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problem-with-net-ftp-mtime/102432/1 "2006-08-15T14:17:18Z")

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Hi all,

Ruby 1.8.4  
Solaris 10, connecting to a Solaris 8 remote host.

I’ve got a code snippet like the one below. It connects fine, performs  
the  
chdir fine, performs the nlst fine, but chokes on mtime:

FTP.open(host, user, password) do |ftp|  
ftp.chdir(some\_dir)  
ftp.nlst.each{ |file|  
puts file # prints “audit17717447” fine  
puts ftp.mtime(file, true) # Boom! See below  
}  
end

Results:

/opt/csw/lib/ruby/1.8/net/ftp.rb:243:in `getresp': 500 'MDTM audit17717447': command not understood. (Net::FTPPermError) from /opt/csw/lib/ruby/1.8/net/ftp.rb:264:in`sendcmd’  
from /opt/csw/lib/ruby/1.8/monitor.rb:229:in `synchronize' from /opt/csw/lib/ruby/1.8/net/ftp.rb:262:in`sendcmd’  
from /opt/csw/lib/ruby/1.8/net/ftp.rb:767:in `mdtm' from /opt/csw/lib/ruby/1.8/net/ftp.rb:699:in`mtime’

Am I doing something wrong here? I don’t see anything like ‘MDTM’  
mentioned in  
my ftp man page. Or is it time to parse the long file name format  
manually?

Thanks,

Dan

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![danielb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@danielb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/danielb)\
**Post date:** [August 15, 2006, 2:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problem-with-net-ftp-mtime/102432/2 "2006-08-15T14:17:19Z")

</div>

Daniel B. wrote:

> ftp.nlst.each{ |file|  
> from /opt/csw/lib/ruby/1.8/monitor.rb:229:in `synchronize' from /opt/csw/lib/ruby/1.8/net/ftp.rb:262:in`sendcmd’  
> from /opt/csw/lib/ruby/1.8/net/ftp.rb:767:in `mdtm' from /opt/csw/lib/ruby/1.8/net/ftp.rb:699:in`mtime’
> 
> Am I doing something wrong here? I don’t see anything like ‘MDTM’  
> mentioned in my ftp man page. Or is it time to parse the long file  
> name format manually?  
> I’ve had the same problem. Sometimes #mtime will work, sometimes not.  
> It seems to depend on the ftp server I’m going against. IIRC, I  
> couldn’t get it to work going against Windows2000 ftp services, so I  
> ended up parsing the long file name format myself.

Jamey

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