How to download FTP file using its full FTP path?

Question

Using the ftplib in Python, you can download files, but it seems you are restricted to use the file name only (not the full file path). The following code successfully downloads the requested code:

import ftplib
ftp=ftplib.FTP("ladsweb.nascom.nasa.gov")
ftp.login()
ftp.cwd("/allData/5/MOD11A1/2002/001")
ftp.retrbinary('RETR MOD11A1.A2002001.h00v08.005.2007079015634.hdf',open("MOD11A1.A2002001.h00v08.005.2007079015634.hdf",'wb').write)

As you can see, first a login to the site (ftp.login()) is established and then the current directory is set (ftp.cwd()). After that you need to declare the file name to download the file that resides in the current directory. How about downloading the file directly by using its full path/link?

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 12 '13 at 09:59

2

import ftplib

ftp = ftplib.FTP("ladsweb.nascom.nasa.gov")
ftp.login()

a = 'allData/5/MOD11A1/2002/001/MOD11A1.A2002001.h00v08.005.2007079015634.hdf'
fhandle = open('ftp-test', 'wb')
ftp.retrbinary('RETR ' + a, fhandle.write)
fhandle.close()

answered Oct 12 '13 at 09:59

mislavcimpersak

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It works, and it is around 1 second faster then when setting the current directory. – multigoodverse Oct 12 '13 at 10:37
But when I input variable a instead of "ftp-test', it does not work. – multigoodverse Oct 12 '13 at 10:57
+1 on that. @ArditSulce check what you are sending using `type(your_variable)` – mislavcimpersak Oct 12 '13 at 12:10
@Jacek and mislav: Nope, it does not work, neither with Python 2, nor with 3. Just try to replace 'ftp-test' with a and you will believe me. – multigoodverse Oct 12 '13 at 13:46
1

well you can not write to a directory that does not exist on your disk. first you would have to create the needed dir structure. use pythons `os.path.exists` + `os.makedirs`. – mislavcimpersak Oct 12 '13 at 17:30

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 13 '13 at 08:51

This solution uses the urlopen function in the urllib module. The urlopen function will let you download ftp and http urls. I like using it because you can connect and get all the data in one line. The last three lines extract the filename from the url and then save the data to that filename.

from urllib import urlopen
url = 'ftp://ladsweb.nascom.nasa.gov/allData/5/MOD11A1/2002/001/MOD11A1.A2002001.h00v08.005.2007079015634.hdf'
data = urlopen(url).read()
filename = url.split('/')[-1]
with open(filename, 'wb') as f:
    f.write(data)

How to download FTP file using its full FTP path?

2 Answers2