How to solve the problem of file name encoding when connecting to FTP server in Python?

When Python connects to an FTP server to download files, it often encounters file name encoding problems, especially when the file name contains non-UTF-8 characters (such as GBK encoding). This article provides a solution with sample code.

When using the ftplib library to connect to the FTP server and obtain the file list, if the server file name is non-UTF-8 encoding, the program may report the error "'utf-8' codec can't decode byte...". This problem is common across platforms or across locales.

Solution:

1. Server default encoding: ftplib itself does not support directly specifying or detecting server default encoding, and requires the help of other libraries or extension functions.
2. Multi-encoding attempts: Predict the encodings that the server may use (such as UTF-8 and GBK), and try to decode the file name one by one until it is successful.
3. Third-party libraries: third-party libraries such as paramiko provide more complete coding support and error handling.
4. Upgrading the server: Upgrading the FTP server to support UTF-8 encoding is a long-term solution to ensure the consistency of file name encoding.
5. Avoid special characters: Restrict uploading file names using only ASCII characters, and file names can be cleaned or converted on the upload client.
6. Custom error handling: Catch UnicodeDecodeError exception, try other encoding decoding, or ignore/replace characters that cannot be decoded.

The following sample code demonstrates how to try to decode a file name using the ftplib library and multi-encoding:

 import ftplib

def decode_filename(filename, encodings=['utf-8', 'gbk']):
    for enc in encodings:
        try:
            return filename.decode(enc)
        except UnicodeDecodeError:
            pass
    return filename # All encoding attempts failed, return the original byte ftp = ftplib.FTP('ftp.example.com')
ftp.login('user', 'passwd')

dir_list = ftp.nlst('/path/to/directory')
for raw_filename in dir_list:
    filename = decode_filename(raw_filename)
    print(filename)
    # ... Download the file...

ftp.quit()

This method effectively deals with the FTP server file name encoding problem, ensuring that the program correctly obtains and processes the file list. Please replace 'ftp.example.com' , 'user' , 'passwd' and /path/to/directory for your actual FTP server information. Adjust the encoding in the encodings list according to the actual situation.

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