Re: [SLE] Automated FTP script (bash)

9 Jul 2002

      On 09 Jul 2002 20:20:38 +0200
henjay  wrote:
...
I'm looking for a script that will do the following.
1: Connect to a FTP site. 
2: Connect automatically either using cron or running the script
  manually (username and password in the script or in seperate 	file).
3: Download an "X" number of files. (The file names are already known)
3a: Download an "X" number of files but this time the file names are not
  known.
4: Backup the already existing files and copy the files to a backup
directory. The name of the directory is the name of the file including
the date.
5: Copy the new files from the FTP site to the specified directory.
And last but not least. Is there a good site where I can go too to learn
Shell scripting and also a good book for someone who has never
programmed before?
If you want to learn bash shell scripting, try  http://www.shelldorado.com
it has books, examples, everything.

Your particular script would probably be easier in Perl, bash is very
clunky for doing anything other than basic system commands.

Here is a quick sample script using the Net::Ftp module from Perl.
If you need help with the backing-up portion of the script, I would go
to www.perlmonks.org  and post  the question, showing  what you have
written so far.

This script will give you something to play with, you can call it from
a bash script, if you want to do the backup portion in bash. 
You can get Net::FTP  from    http://cpan.org

Perl has a File::Path module which makes creating  directories
easy, and File::Copy which make copying and moving easy.
This script assumes ascii files, but you can change it to binary.

#######################################################
#!/usr/bin/perl
use Net::FTP;

$username='username';
$password='password';
@filename=('1.txt','2.txt','3.txt','4.txt');
$rdir='/PATH_TO_FILES';

$ftp=Net::FTP->new("ftp.myftp.com") or print "Can-t connect $@\n";
$ftp->login($username,$password) or print "Can-t login\n";
$ftp->cwd($rdir) or print "Can-t cd\n";
$ftp->ascii();

foreach my $f (@filename) {
        $ftp->get($f); }

$ftp->quit();
exit;
##########################################################

-- 
use Perl;  #powerful programmable prestidigitation

Re: [SLE] Automated FTP script (bash)

zentara