Shell Programming and Scripting

I'm slowly (very slowly) learning csh and the UNIX underpinnings of Mac OS X so please bear with me.

I want to be able to ftp a file to my personal webspace at work. I can do this by manually going in and doing

ftp host.domain.com
user:
password:
cd /folder
put myfile
etc..

I'd like to be able to do this automatically. I read the man file on ftp and it told me about .netrc. I tried using that but ftp doesn't want to read my .netrc. Maybe Mac OS X won't let me use a .netrc?
I found Perderabo's suggestion for doing what I think I want to do but it's using ksh.

Code:

#! /usr/bin/ksh

HOST=remote.host.name
USER=whoever
PASSWD=whatever

exec 4>&1
ftp -nv >&4 2>&4 |&

print -p open $HOST
print -p user $USER $PASSWD
print -p cd directory
print -p binary
print -p put tar.gz

wait
exit 0

Is there an equivilent to ksh's print function in csh? Is this kind of thing even possible in csh?

If MAC OS X have the possibility to use .netrc files, and in your organization is not considered a security expose.

Man page an a example of an .netrc in Solaris

.netrc: file for ftp remote login data

DESCRIPTION The .netrc file contains data for logging in to a remote host over the network
for file transfers by ftp(1). This file resides in the user's home directory on the
machine initiating the file transfer. Its permissions should be set to disallow read
access by group and others (see chmod(1)).
The following tokens are recognized; they may be separated by SPACE, TAB, or
NEWLINE characters:

machine <destination_server_name> Identify a remote machine name.
The auto-login processsearches the .netrc file for a machine token
that matches the remote machine specified on the ftp command line or as
an open command argument. Once a match is made, the
subsequent .netrc tokens are processed, stopping when the
EOF is reached or another machine token is encountered.

login <name>: Identify a user on the remote machine. If this token is
present, the auto-login process will initiate a login using
the specified name.

password <remote_user_passwd> :Supply a password. If this token is present,
the auto-login process will supply the specified string if the remote server
requires a password as part of the login process. Note: if
this token is present in the .netrc file, ftp will abort the
auto-login process if the .netrc is readable by anyone
besides the user.

account <remote_user_account_name>: Supply an additional account password.
If this token is present, the auto-login process will supply the specified
string if the remote server requires an additional account
password, or the auto-login process will initiate an ACCT
command if it does not.

macdef <name> : Define a macro. This token functions the same as ftp
macdef. A macro is defined with the specified name; its
contents begin with the next .netrc line and continue
until a null line (consecutive NEWLINE characters) is
encountered. If a macro named init is defined, it is
automatically executed as the last step in the auto-login
process.

EXAMPLES EXAMPLE 1 A Sample .netrc File
A .netrc file containing the following line:
machine ray login demo password mypassword
allows an autologin to the machine ray using the login name demo with password mypassword.

Good luck, Hugo.

Welcome to the forum, DumDum! It's good to see a newcomer who actually used the search function.

The csh equivalent of print would be "echo". But the there is no equivalent of "print -p" which sends the line to a co-process. But then, csh doesn't have a co-process concept either. Nor can csh manipulate file descriptors. In short, you are not going to be able to use my technique with csh.

I am not familiar with the MAC OS X. Are there any other shells available? Even the old Bourne shell could be used with a "here document".

Code:

#! /usr/bin/sh
HOST=remote.host.name
USER=whoever
PASSWD=whatever

ftp -nv <<-!x
open $HOST
user $USER $PASSWORD
cd directory
binary
put tar.gz
bye
!x
exit 0

PS

Another thread implies that csh can handle "here documents" like this. You might give it a try...I'm not real expert with csh, so I'm not sure.

Well I finally got the .netrc file to work. I guess the first time I did it I formatted the .netrc file wrong or something.

I think other shells are available in OS X but I don't know if they're already there or if I have to go find them and try to install them. I may be checking out other shells just for the sake of learning how to script.

:Update: It turns out that Mac OS X has a little bit of most everything. According to one user on Macaddicts message boards, Mac OS X has csh, tcsh, Bourne and bash. I tried out that script written for Bourne and it worked like a charm.

Thanks for the help. (again)

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