libURLSetFTPMode "passive"  --default is passive anyway
put url "ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/" into listing
repeat for each line ftpln in listing
    set itemdel to space
    if the first char of (the first item of ftpln) is "d" then
        -- is a directory
        put the last item of ftpln after dirlist
    else
        put the last item of ftpln after filelist
    end if
end repeat

put listing //(subset)
//  -rw-r--r--   1 ftpadmin ftp-adm      3997 May 26  1998 README
//  drwxrwsr-x  17 ftpadmin ftp-adm      4096 Sep 10 16:08 pub

put dirlist
//  armd
//  chmgt
//  incoming
//  lost+found
//  office
//  pub

put filelist
//  README
//  ftp-exec
//  index.html
//  robots.txt

-- downloading a file (upload is same, but use put)
-- you don't have to cd manually
-- file up/down transfer is binary in livecode (always enforced by livecode)
put URL  "ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/robots.txt" into URL "file:myFile.txt"

You can execute any ftp command using the libURLftpCommand command
e.g. to know the working directory, issue "pwd", we could issue "list" for above too,
but using an url with slash on the end with the ftp protocol causes a dir listing by default.
put libURLftpCommand("PWD",ftp.example.org)