ftp_nlist returns false on empty directories instead of empty array

It seems that ftp_rawlist has the corrected behaviour and it is returning an empty array.

The problem is that the developer cannot use this ftp_rawlist in case the directory do not exist. In that case, ftp_nlist will return false (unreliable result) and ftp_rawlist return Array() which is again unreliable.

The best fix would be that ftp_nlist return false when the directory does not exist, and Array() when directory is empty.

It appears that this problem appears on php 4.4.4 and also 4.3.2 version. Other versions should contain the same problem.

Seeing similar errors in PHP 5.1.6 on Ubuntu:
- with (local) ftp server ProFTPD, ftp_nlist() returns false for both empty and non-existing directories. ftp_rawlist() behaves properly.
- with external ftp server vsFTPd 2.0.1 (on RedHat), it returns proper empty array, but then that /also/ returns empty arrays for non-existing paths, should be boolean false? ftp_rawlist() does the same strange thing here: empty arrays for both empty and non-existing directories.

can you please provide a network dump (e.g. with ethereal) of the connections to the ftp server? (or can you provide the address of your ftp server)
I can't reproduce your problem with a few servers I tried. 

OK, forget my last comment. I found a server that exibists this behaviour (ftp.freeradius.org/pub/suse/i386).
I'll work on a patch.

This bug has been fixed in CVS.

Snapshots of the sources are packaged every three hours; this change
will be in the next snapshot. You can grab the snapshot at
http://snaps.php.net/.
 
Thank you for the report, and for helping us make PHP better.

I installed:

php4 (tar.bz2) (4.3M) php4 (tar.gz) (5.3M) 
Built On: Jan 03, 2007 15:30 GMT

but the problem still appear.

The sequence of the code is:

ftpconnect();
echo "'";
$a=ftp_nlist($ftp_id, '/httpdocs/_site/s/5/0/3/t');
if($a===false) echo 'false';
else print_r($a);
echo "'";
ftpclose();

(ftpconnect and ftpclose are my defined functions to connect to ftp server)

The previous sequence is returning false even though the directory exists and have 777 permissions.

I didn't merge the patches to PHP 4..

Ok, after testing and testing and testing I got a nasty conclusion...

After testing:
http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/package/3174.html
http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/package/2137.html
http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/package/1244.html
which are simple clases to handle FTP without builtin functions I got the same result which is "false" instead of "array()".

That gave me the conclusion that it can be another bug in my ProFTP server 1.2.9 and I tried the same scripts for a different ftp server and worked fine.

I think I will try to update ProFTP as well, and check again and post a bug on their site.

Thanx.

After all, I had already merged the patch to php 4.4 some time ago. So I really need access to your FTP server (an anonymous account is sufficient)

OK, I have analysed your server response and it is returning a non-valid response (code 450).
searching a little leads to:
http://bugs.proftpd.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2863
http://bugs.proftpd.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2861

comment from the proftpd developer: "Resolved in 1.3.1rc1", so you'll need to upgrade proftpd as well.

Closing bug report as the problem was already fixed (it didn't worked with a valid return code: 226)

I can able to draw the line transperently with pen passing through the obstacles of stage.