FTP Bash script

Elguapo · 06-07-2007, 12:33 PM

Each day I have to collect and parse several csv files from one of our IDX vendors. Right now the only collection method they offer for this data is via ftp. Instead of manually doing this each day, I would like to automate this task.

when I run the script below, it doesn't log me in. I have tested using the script in conjunction with a .netrc file. But this is impractical seeing as I will be adding new instances of the same cron job a lot.

Here is my current script. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

#!/bin/sh
FTP_PASSIVE_MODE=YES; export FTP_PASSIVE_MODE
echo "Lets FTP"
login=$2
password=$3
ftp $1
echo "Connected"
cd $4
get "*.txt"
echo "FTP completed"

Dox Systems - Brian · 06-07-2007, 12:35 PM

BTDT, I believe my solution was to put the login/ftp action info in a text file then redirect it in via stdin. I also remember needing a "!" symbol in the command line. also, note that get should be replaced by "mget"... You may also need another ftp command line option to avoid possible "confirm" messages for each file (depends on version of FTP).

Hobbletoe · 06-07-2007, 01:26 PM

What you really need is a "here document". Basically, you are telling it to pass everything between a pair of tags into the command that is running. In your case, you would ...

Code:

ftp -i $1 <<EOF
use $2
$3
cd $4
mget *.txt
quit
EOF

Note that EOF can be anything that you want. I changed it a bit to better facilitate getting multiple files as well (ftp -i will not prompt you for a response because of the mget which you will want to use if you are getting all of the txt files in that directory).

To learn more about here documents, check out the Advanced Bash Scripting Guide at The Linux Documentation Project.