FTP Scripting Help

Commands

Command Operation
# Remark (comment) indicator. The text following this will be ignored.
ascii Switch to ASCII mode. ASCII mode is the default mode; use it for transferring text files.
binary Switch to binary mode. Use this to transfer binary files, including files ending in .zip, .tar, .Z, and .gz, executable programs, and graphics files.

bye
quit
close

 Close the connection to the remote computer (optional)
cd
cd remote-directory
Change the working directory on the remote machine to remote-directory

del
delete
delete remote-file
Delete the file remote-file on the remote machine.
get
get remote-file
Retrieve the remote-file and store it on the local machine.
lcd
lcd directory
Change the working directory on the local machine.
mdel
mdelete
mdelete remote-files
Delete the remote-files on the remote machine.
mget
mget remote-files [remote-files2 [...]]
Expand the remote-files on the remote machine and do a get for each file name thus produced. Files are transferred into the local working directory, which can be changed with `lcd' directory.

ren
rename

rename remote-file remote-file-new-name
Renames remote-files on the remote machine to the given new name, remote-file-new-name.
mkdir
mkdir directory-name
Make a directory on the remote machine.
mput
mput local-files [local-files2 [...]]
Expand wild cards in the list of local files given as arguments and do a put for each file in the resulting list.
put
put local-file
Store a local file on the remote machine.
chmod
chmod permissions remote-file
Attempts to change the permission of remote-file to the given value. This only works on Linux/UNIX host servers.

The permissions should be given using the three octal numbers for permissions. The three values are owner (first number), group (second number), and other (third number). Please reference the following to determine each of these values:

7 = 4+2+1 (read/write/execute; all rights)
6 = 4+2 (read/write)
5 = 4+1 (read/execute)
4 = 4 (read)
3 = 2+1 (write/execute)
2 = 2 (write)
1 = 1 (execute)
0 = 0 (no rights)

For example, to allow only the owner to read and write, the group to read, and refuse anyone else rights, the permissions would be 640. To allow the owner all rights, the group read and write, and everyone else read the permissions would be 764. To allow everyone everything the permissions would be 777 (not recommended).
rmdir
rmdir directory-name
Delete a directory on the remote machine. This will attempt to remove the directory, regardless if there are files or subdirectories within the directory.

Tokens

Tokens allow a more dynamic execution of the script. For instance, when your script runs you want it to create a folder using the current date and upload to this unique folder; therefore, the script would use the following code:

mkdir script_%Y%%m%%d%
cd script_%Y%%m%%d%

Assuming today is August 6, 2013, this would translate into:

mkdir script_20130806
cd script_20130806

All of the following tokens are expected to be contained within percentile symbols ("%").

Token Description Example returned values
Date/Time Formatting Shortcuts
LONGDATE
 Long date, formatted as day of the week, month day, 4-digit year Example: Tuesday, August 6, 2013
SHORTDATE
 Short date, formatted as day of the month/day/4-digit year Example: 8/6/2013
LONGTIME
 Long time, formatted as hour:minite:second AM/PM Example: 1:38:23 PM
SHORTTIME
 Short time, formatted as 24-hour:minite:second Example: 13:38:23
DATESTAMP
 Numeric value representing the date Example: "8/6/2013 10:57 AM" results in 1375811820
Day
d
 Day of the month, 2 digits with leading zeros 01 to 31
D
 A textual representation of a day, three letters Mon through Sun
j
 Day of the month without leading zeros 1 to 31
l
(lowercase 'L')
 A full textual representation of the day of the week Sunday through Saturday
N
 ISO-8601 numeric representation of the day of the week 1 (for Monday) through 7 (for Sunday)
S
 English ordinal suffix for the day of the month, 2 characters st, nd, rd or th. Works well with j
w
 Numeric representation of the day of the week 0 (for Sunday) through 6 (for Saturday)
z
 The day of the year (starting from 0) 0 through 365
Week
W
 ISO-8601 week number of year, weeks starting on Monday Example: 42 (the 42nd week in the year)
Month
F
 A full textual representation of a month, such as January or March January through December
m
 Numeric representation of a month, with leading zeros 01 through 12
M
 A short textual representation of a month, three letters Jan through Dec
n
 Numeric representation of a month, without leading zeros 1 through 12
t
 Number of days in the given month 28 through 31
Year
L
 Whether it's a leap year 1 if it is a leap year, 0 otherwise.
o
 ISO-8601 year number. This has the same value as Y, except that if the ISO week number (W) belongs to the previous or next year, that year is used instead. Examples: 1999 or 2003
Y
 A full numeric representation of a year, 4 digits Examples: 1999 or 2003
y
 A two digit representation of a year Examples: 99 or 03
Time
a
 Lowercase Ante meridiem and Post meridiem am or pm
A
 Uppercase Ante meridiem and Post meridiem AM or PM
B
 Swatch Internet time 000 through 999
g
 12-hour format of an hour without leading zeros 1 through 12
G
 24-hour format of an hour without leading zeros 0 through 23
h
 12-hour format of an hour with leading zeros 01 through 12
H
 24-hour format of an hour with leading zeros 00 through 23
i
 Minutes with leading zeros 00 to 59
s
 Seconds, with leading zeros 00 through 59
u
 Microseconds Example: 654321
Timezone
e
 Timezone identifier Examples: UTC, GMT, Atlantic/Azores
I
(capital 'i')
 Whether or not the date is in daylight saving time 1 if Daylight Saving Time, 0 otherwise.
O
 Difference to Greenwich time (GMT) in hours Example: +0200
P
 Difference to Greenwich time (GMT) with colon between hours and minutes Example: +02:00
T
 Timezone abbreviation Examples: EST, MDT ...
Z
 Timezone offset in seconds. The offset for timezones west of UTC is always negative, and for those east of UTC is always positive. -43200 through 50400
Full Date/Time
c
 ISO 8601 date 2004-02-12T15:19:21+00:00
r
 » RFC 2822 formatted date Example: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 16:01:07 +0200
U
 Seconds since the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT)