connect to ftp and download file

Question

I'm trying to download specific file from ftp but I get error while trying to connect

import ftplib
url = 'ftp://ftp.ensemblgenomes.org/pub/release-41/bacteria//fasta/bacteria_176_collection/_bacillus_aminovorans/cdna/'
ftp = ftplib.FTP(url)

error that I get: UnicodeError: encoding with 'idna' codec failed (UnicodeError: label too long)

My guess is that this is caused by the specific url you use but don't show. — Steffen Ullrich, Oct 16 '18 at 19:24

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 16 '18 at 19:33

url = 'ftp://ftp.ensemblgenomes.org/pub/release-41/bacteria//fasta/bacteria_176_collection/_bacillus_aminovorans/cdna/'
ftp = ftplib.FTP(url)

From the documentation of ftplib:

class ftplib.FTP(host='', user='', passwd='', acct='', timeout=None, source_address=None)
Return a new instance of the FTP class. When host is given, the method call connect(host) is made.

In other words: the first argument is expected to be a hostname only, not a URL with protocol://host/path. If you want to connect to the server and make the server change to a specific path you need to do this in steps instead:

ftp = ftplib.FTP('ftp.ensemblgenomes.org','ftp','user@example.com')
ftp.cwd('/pub/release-41/bacteria//fasta/bacteria_176_collection/_bacillus_aminovorans/cdna/')

connect to ftp and download file

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