DOS ftp listing to local file

Question

I'm trying to find a way to see if a file exists on an ftp site via DOS. I tried a get command on the file hoping that if it didn't exist it wouldn't download it to my local directory. However it seams that it still does, but it's an empty file. This doesn't work for me however because the file I'm looking for is just a empty trigger file so I can't tell the difference.

I would like to dump a listing ls of the ftp directory to a text file on my local drive and so I try
ls > listing.txt. It creates the listing.txt file locally but it's always empty even though there are files on the ftp site.

What are my options with this?

I have used dir > listing.txt and ls > listing.txt and every time listing.txt is empty even though there are files in the directories I'm running those commands on.

Sorry if I didn't make this clear, but I'm trying to get the listing for an automated process and not simply for my visual when manually doing this.

Edit your question with the code you have tried so far. Have you used the dir command from FTP to get a list of files? — LittleBobbyTables - Au Revoir
Put the remote ftp commands in a file. Use the -s parameter with that file and redirect the ftp command line. — Jay

alexg alexg · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-23T09:20:03

Unless you're on FreeDOS, you're probably not using DOS. Perhaps you're using ftp.exe in the windows console? If that's the case, don't use a normal file redirect. Instead check here the syntax for ls in the standard Windows ftp client:

ls [RemoteDirectory] [LocalFile]

So you can do a ls . listing.txt to get a list of files in the current remote directory. The listing.txt file will appear in your user directory, e.g. c:\Users\user.

DOS ftp listing to local file

1 Answers