FTP command to List only directories. Impossible?

Question

How do I perform directory listing but only display directories?

I tried ls | grep '/' but it got rejected with the error : usage: ls remote-directory local-file

This is because command line in FTP is different than your usual linux command line, but I was wondering if there is something equivalent in FTP command

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

The FTP protocol does not directly support such a feature. It does, however, allow for a broad interpretation that some servers use to accept things like using ls-style arguments (e.g. LIST -d, as mentioned by bdk).

Without such a broad interpretation by the server, you are left with retrieving this information from the listing. Unfortunately the standard doesn't provide a fixed format for this either (although it seems most servers use the ls -l formatting).