How to list all the folders and files in the directory after connecting through SFTP in Python

Question

I am using Python and trying to connect to SFTP and want to retrieve an XML file from there and need to place it in my local system. Below is the code:

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Answer 1

One quick solution is to examine the output of lstat of each object in ftp.listdir().

Here is how you can list all the directories.

>>> for i in ftp.listdir():
...     lstatout=str(ftp.lstat(i)).split()[0]
...     if 'd' in lstatout: print i, 'is a directory'
... 

Files are the opposite search:

>>> for i in ftp.listdir():
...     lstatout=str(ftp.lstat(i)).split()[0]
...     if 'd' not in lstatout: print i, 'is a file'
... 

Answer 2

The SFTPClient.listdir returns everything, files and folders.

Were there folders, to tell them from the files, use SFTPClient.listdir_attr instead. It returns a collection of SFTPAttributes.

from stat import S_ISDIR, S_ISREG

for entry in sftp.listdir_attr(remotedir):
    mode = entry.st_mode
    if S_ISDIR(mode):
        print(entry.filename + " is folder")
    elif S_ISREG(mode):
        print(entry.filename + " is file")

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The accepted answer by @Oz123 is inefficient. SFTPClient.listdir internally calls SFTPClient.listdir_attr and throws most information away returning file and folder names only. The answer then uselessly and laboriously re-retrieves all that data by calling SFTPClient.lstat for each file.

See also How to fetch sizes of all SFTP files in a directory through Paramiko.

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Obligatory warning: Do not use AutoAddPolicy – You are losing a protection against MITM attacks by doing so. For a correct solution, see Paramiko "Unknown Server".