How to synchronize file changes with files on the FTP server?

Question

My project files are in the local folder in D:\xampp\htdocs\mysite The same files are on my FTP server. A git repository would exist only locally in a .git directory to keep track.

I want to be able to edit my files locally, and the change to reflect on the server.

Requirements:

• Any new file on the server would be copied into the local dir
• Any change made to a local file will update the file on the server
• Ability to exclude some directories, files, extensions (for example .git)

What are the available softwares that can do this on windows? Does Filezilla do a better job maybe? or any other suggestions

I've tried WinSCP but i can't get it to work right. Whenever I make i change on one file, a dialog pops up (or console outputs depending on where I've ran it) going through all the files and all the subdirectories. I don't know why is that since I've made change only to one file and synchronized all the files before trying to keepuptodate. It just spends time on some files which are already synchronized and up to date.

Answer 1

Below is the .cmd script I use to keep my local directory up to date with my remote one using WinSCP.

If you're seeing a whole lot of transfers when saving one file it's probably because you aren't excluding your .git folder. When you save a file git does a lot of changes to the .git folder. You're going to want to exclude it in the WinSCP profile.

@ECHO OFF
@ECHO Keeping Toolkit dir up to date...
@PING 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 10000 > NUL
@START "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\WinSCP\WinSCP.exe" my-toolkit /keepuptodate c:\Users\a150495\toolkit /opt/ssp/apps/www/html/chris/toolkit /defaults "" -clean

Answer 2

If WinSCP synchronizes file that were not changed, you probably have some issue with timezones or DST.

Refer to WinSCP FAQ for possible causes:
Synchronization or keep remote directory up to date functions are not working. Why?