Tweaking FTP scripts to fine-tune their behavior

Dave's Answer: I don't have a hybrid script, but the core piece you're talking about is this:

if [ ! -f $timestamp ] ; then
  # no timestamp file, upload all files
  for filename in *
  do 
    if [ -f "$filename" ] ; then
      echo "put -P \"$filename\"" >> $tempfile
      count=$(( $count + 1 ))
    fi
  done
else
  for filename in $(find . -newer $timestamp -type f -print)
  do 
    echo "put -P \"$filename\"" >> $tempfile
    count=$(( $count + 1 ))
  done
fi

If you're talking about script #82, then I surmise that you want to get the files rather than put them. So what happens if you just change the "put" to a "get" here? Well, there are two challenges. First off, your timestamp file might well now exist on the remote system (solved by doing an ftp 'get' before you proceed) and second, the list of files you want to grab aren't local anymore either. The latter is solved by generating a file listing (use "dir" in the ftp sequence), saving it, parsing it out (don't forget to include the last modified date/time), and then comparing each to the date/time of the timestamp file.

I admit, it's going to be quite a bit more work if you want to be really flexible in this solution, but given the speed of modern connections, it might just be easier to bulk "get" everything on the remote system regardless of the timestamp anyway.

However you solve it, good luck!

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