What alternatives exist for accessing files on an FTP server without a web server using PHP?

When accessing files on an FTP server without a web server using PHP, one alternative is to use the PHP FTP functions to establish a connection to the FTP server and retrieve the files directly. This can be done by using functions like ftp_connect(), ftp_login(), and ftp_get() to download files from the FTP server to the local server.

// Connect to FTP server
$ftp_server = 'ftp.example.com';
$ftp_user = 'username';
$ftp_pass = 'password';
$conn_id = ftp_connect($ftp_server);
$login_result = ftp_login($conn_id, $ftp_user, $ftp_pass);

// Download file from FTP server
$local_file = 'local_file.txt';
$remote_file = 'remote_file.txt';
if (ftp_get($conn_id, $local_file, $remote_file, FTP_BINARY)) {
    echo "Successfully downloaded $remote_file\n";
} else {
    echo "Error downloading $remote_file\n";
}

// Close connection
ftp_close($conn_id);