curl/docs/cmdline-opts/quote.md

---
c: Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al.
SPDX-License-Identifier: curl
Long: quote
Arg: <command>
Short: Q
Help: Send command(s) to server before transfer
Protocols: FTP SFTP
Category: ftp sftp
Added: 5.3
Multi: append
See-also:
  - request
Example:
  - --quote "DELE file" ftp://example.com/foo
---

# `--quote`

Send an arbitrary command to the remote FTP or SFTP server. Quote commands are
sent BEFORE the transfer takes place (just after the initial **PWD** command
in an FTP transfer, to be exact). To make commands take place after a
successful transfer, prefix them with a dash '-'.

(FTP only) To make commands be sent after curl has changed the working
directory, just before the file transfer command(s), prefix the command with a
'+'. This is not performed when a directory listing is performed.

You may specify any number of commands.

By default curl stops at first failure. To make curl continue even if the
command fails, prefix the command with an asterisk (*). Otherwise, if the
server returns failure for one of the commands, the entire operation is
aborted.

You must send syntactically correct FTP commands as RFC 959 defines to FTP
servers, or one of the commands listed below to SFTP servers.

SFTP is a binary protocol. Unlike for FTP, curl interprets SFTP quote commands
itself before sending them to the server. Filenames may be quoted shell-style
to embed spaces or special characters. Following is the list of all supported
SFTP quote commands:

## atime date file
The atime command sets the last access time of the file named by the file
operand. The date expression can be all sorts of date strings, see the
*curl_getdate(3)* man page for date expression details. (Added in 7.73.0)

## chgrp group file
The chgrp command sets the group ID of the file named by the file operand to
the group ID specified by the group operand. The group operand is a decimal
integer group ID.

## chmod mode file
The chmod command modifies the file mode bits of the specified file. The
mode operand is an octal integer mode number.

## chown user file
The chown command sets the owner of the file named by the file operand to the
user ID specified by the user operand. The user operand is a decimal
integer user ID.

## ln source_file target_file
The ln and symlink commands create a symbolic link at the target_file location
pointing to the source_file location.

## mkdir directory_name
The mkdir command creates the directory named by the directory_name operand.

## mtime date file
The mtime command sets the last modification time of the file named by the
file operand. The date expression can be all sorts of date strings, see the
*curl_getdate(3)* man page for date expression details. (Added in 7.73.0)

## pwd
The pwd command returns the absolute path name of the current working directory.

## rename source target
The rename command renames the file or directory named by the source
operand to the destination path named by the target operand.

## rm file
The rm command removes the file specified by the file operand.

## rmdir directory
The rmdir command removes the directory entry specified by the directory
operand, provided it is empty.

## symlink source_file target_file
See ln.