UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi

Could somebody please help me with this code?

------------------------------------------

Code:

@ftp -i -s:"%~f0"&GOTO:EOF
open mysite.co.uk
myusername
mypassword
!:--- FTP commands below here --- 
cd public_html/ 
binary 
lcd c:\ 
put myfile.jpg
bye

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At the moment I execute the above FTP code as a batch file to transfer a single file from a local folder to my server, it does this once and then stops.

What I am searching for is a modification to the code so that it continuously transfers the same file every 10 seconds or so without having to re-start the batch file. I would then execute/kill the batch file with a schedule.

I already have "Script Ftp" which does exactly what I'm asking, but as this is a learning curve I'd really like to use script and do it myself if possible.

Any help would be appreciated.

Moderator's Comments:

edit by bakunin: which part of the numerous callings to use CODE-tags was not understandable?

See the man page for your favourite shell on how to put this into a while-loop. As you want to "do it yourself" you sure appreciate if i don't tell you how this is done.

If you can afford longer intervals on the transfer (1min or more instead of 10 seconds) you could use "cron"s services instead of the loop. Write a script and put that into crontab (see "man crontab" for details).

I hope this helps.

bakunin

Thank you for your reply bakunin and I appologies for my mistake.

My comment "this is a learning curve" and "do it myself" meant that I would like to learn something about scripting with the help of others using this forum, and learning from examples of code to understand how they work. As I stated, at the moment I'm using a third party software namely "Script FTP" to do the work for me.

I have no idea about scripting and that's why I posted in this section "Unix for dummies".

If somebody could help me edit the code I submitted or point me in the direction of finding some that would do what I want and how to execute it, I would be very grateful.

The reason for the 10 second continuous upload is for a live webcam.

Many thanks

No problem.

To learn shell scripting is complex and easy at the same time. It is complex because shell scripting is a programming language and it has to be learned like any other programming language. This is too much information to be passed to do so in a forum by exchanging postings. Buy a good book and read that, we have even a list of recommendable books in the forum. My personal favourite for learning the "Korn Shell", one of the most common shells there are, is

Barry Rosenberg, Hands-On KornShell93 Programming


Yet, script programming is easy because basically every command you enter on the command line could be put into a simple text file and then executed as script. Example:

You enter at the command line "ls -l" to list the directory content. Now let us turn this into a script:

Code:

#!/bin/ksh

ls -l

put that into a file called "myscript.sh", make it executable by issuing:

Code:

chmod 754 myscript.sh

and then execute it:

Code:

./myscript.sh

That is all - you have written your first script. Some details need explanation, though: you probably notice the first line. This simply tells the system, when executing the script, it should load this specific shell "/bin/ksh" first and execute the script with it. You can leave this line out but a Unix system can have several different shells installed and if you want control over which one it uses for your script you will want to make that clear by this first line.

If your system doesn't have "/bin/sh" replace it with any other shell. A script that basic will probably be executed by every shell. Still, if you pick a shell you should select one which is POSIX-compatible and common, which leaves 2 shells foremost: Korn shell (ksh) and Bourne again Shell (bash). Of these two i prefer "ksh", but this is at least partially personal preference.

To your problem: what you showed as "script" is basically some ftp-script. "ftp" is the client side of the "file transfer protocol" and a client-/server- software which implements that. "ftp" is interactive and can take commands from the user while it runs. The "script" is simply a list of such commands. To the shell this is only one command (the "ftp" itself). As i told you above you can put this into a script just the way you issue it on command line.

I hope this helps.

bakunin