How do I do an FTP delete with Java URLConnection?

Question

I have a simple put and get working, but can't seem to find how to do a delete? For reference, the put code is:

BufferedInputStream inStream = null;
FileOutputStream outStream = null;

try {
    final String ftpConnectInfo = "ftp://"+user+":"+pass+"@"+destHost+"/"+destFilename+";type=i";

    LOGGER.info("Connection String: {}", ftpConnectInfo);

    URL url = new URL(ftpConnectInfo);

    URLConnection con = url.openConnection();
    inStream = new BufferedInputStream(con.getInputStream());
    outStream = new FileOutputStream(origFilename);

    int i = 0;
    byte[] bytesIn = new byte[1024];
    while ((i = inStream.read(bytesIn)) >= 0) {
         outStream.write(bytesIn, 0, i);
    }
}

Is there some way to modify the URL to do a delete?

Answer 1

Based on this discussion on JavaRanch, I'm not sure you can do it by just modifying the URL. Is there any particular reason why you're not just using a library class like Apache commons FTPClient?

Answer 2

I would take a look at commons-net or commons-vfs for Java FTP, what you are doing here is opening an input stream on a file and reading it, while you want to send a command and get an acknowledgment.

Answer 3

I think the URLConnection is just supposed to allow you to read data.
It implements some commands of the FTP protocol to allow you to fetch files. But i don't think there is any way to sneakily encode a DELETE command in a URL to allow you to do what you want.

As other have said: you have to use a full featured FTP client.