Hi,

I need to get latest *.txt file from windows server via executing FTP command from Unix box. So I decided to get the list of files first and then get only the latest. When I execute "ls *.txt" command and redirect list of files to a local file, it works fine. As soon as I add parameter "ls -t *.txt" it stops working and doesn't populate local file with list of files on Windows server.
Same happens when I try to execute "dir *.txt" - works fine, as soon as I added "dir /O-d *.txt" - trying to sort files and create list in sorted order it stops working. What am I doing wrong ?
-Thank you.

ftpd - the process on the remote box that allows an ftp transfer - does not support
options.

While in ftp try to see if there are commands you can use. Sometimes you can ftp a script to the remote directory then run it. The script creates a physical file. ftp the file to your side and then read it.

The simplest way is to get all the "*.txt" files, then do a diff on the new ones to see if they are indeed different from the old ones (that are in another directory so they are not overwritten). Samba will remote mount disks on a windows server for you as well.

Thank you so much for such a promt reply - it's very encouraging...

I have also tried to populate list without any option and it gives me this list:
-rwxrwxrwx 1 owner group 9538 Jan 13 16:23 ALX_TEST.txt
-rwxrwxrwx 1 owner group 4 Jan 26 14:19ALX_TEST_LATEST.txt
-rwxrwxrwx 1 owner group 9538 Nov 17 2005 TestACH.txt

Now I can use awk and print commands to get the date and time part...but I don't see any date functions that would allow me to convert string "Jan 13 12:23" into date and be able to compare with date of another file... any thoughts on that ?

-thanks

Check this thread specifically this post.

Jim,

I have created get_list.bat file ftp'd it over to the remote directory on windows, then issued separate ftp command and tried to run this get_list.bat file. I was getting "invalid command" error message. Have you done execution of a *.bat command on a remote server before ?

thanks