File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a method of transferring files over the Internet. It's normally used to move files from and to your website, using a special FTP program. It's something most of us use occasionally, especially when we are putting up a new site.
You can, however, automate the whole process painlessly with CI. One use is to test the integrity of your remote site—are the files still there? As a website owner, you always face the possibility that someone will tamper with the files on your site. It may just be your ISP or server admin, deleting or overwriting something by mistake. This happened to David once, when his ISP rebuilt their server and forgot to reload one of his application files. The file concerned wasn't used very often, but mattered a lot when it wasn't there. This led to an interesting error that took some time to track down!
As an example, to show the power of the ftp class, let's build a regular test program, to check the...