UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I'm basically trying to FTP a file to a differnt node, first putting the FTP commmands into a text file and then piping the commands file into the ftp command as follows....

echo "user $USERNAME $PASSWORD" > ftp_cmds
echo "put $SQLOUT /users/$USERNAME/$SQLOUT" >> ftp_cmds
echo "quit" >> ftp_cmds

cat ftp_cmds | ftp -n 147.xxx.xxx.xxx > $FTPLOG

This works fine except that it doesn't execute the quit command for some reason and the console is left hanging. Any ideas?

Please help!

For ftp you would do better using a here doc

Code:

ftp -n 147.xxx.xxx.xxx <<EOF
user $USERNAME $PASSWORD
put $SQLOUT /users/$USERNAME/$SQLOUT
quit
EOF

The ftp commands go between <<EOF and EOF. You can use any string of characters instead of EOF but they must match exactly and the first one must be at the end of the line with the ftp command and the second one must be on its own at the start of the line.

hope this helps

Thanks for your reply. I've tried implementing your suggestion but the terminal still hangs. It's as if it's not executing the quit command.

Here is what I have now....

echo "ftp -n 147.xxx.xxx.xxx <<END_SCRIPT" > ftp_cmds.ftp
echo "user $USERNAME $PASSWORD" >> ftp_cmds.ftp
echo "put $SQLOUT /users/$USERNAME/$SQLOUT" >> ftp_cmds.ftp
echo "quit" >> ftp_cmds.ftp
echo "END_SCRIPT" >> ftp_cmds.ftp

chmod 740 ftp_cmds.ftp

. ftp_cmds.ftp > $FTPLOG


Any more ideas as to why this is hanging?

Replace quit with "bye".If that is not solving the problem try this script.

Code:

echo "user $USERNAME $PASSWORD" > ftp_cmds.ftp 
echo "cd /users/$USERNAME" >> ftp_cmds.ftp 
echo "lcd ur_local_directory" >>ftp_cmds.ftp 
#ur_local_direcotry will be dir path from where u will ftp file to remote
echo "put $SQLOUT" >> ftp_cmds.ftp
echo "bye" >> ftp_cmds.ftp

ftp -nvi 147.xxx.xxx.xxx < ftp_cmds.ftp >$FTPLOG

dhruva has a good point - some ftps don't support quit to exit.

However, I don't think you've got the point of 'here documents' - they are a wonderful facility; there is no need to create a separate script containing the commands as the here doc lets you embed these in the main script (with parameter substitution) and pass them to programs that don't explicitly support command files like ftp.

I suggest that you have another look at my earlier code fragment and play with it until it does what you want.

cheers