Question

I am using the Bash FTP command to ftp files, however i have a problem where i try to create a directory that is more than 2 folders deep. It works if i use two folders deep but if i go to three folders deep then it fails. For example:

mkdir foo/bar - this works
mkdir foo/bar/baz - this fails

I have also tried this:

mkdir -p foo/bar/baz - which didn't work, it ended up creating a '-p' directory

The shell script i am trying to run is actually quite simple but as you can see the directory structure is 3 folders deep and it fails to create the required folders:

#!/bin/bash
DIRECTORY="foo/bar/baz"
FILE="test.pdf"         
HOST="testserver"           
USER="test"         
PASS="test"         

ftp -n $HOST <<END_SCRIPT
quote USER $USER
quote PASS $PASS
mkdir $DIRECTORY
cd $DIRECTORY
binary
put $FILE
quit
END_SCRIPT

Answer 1

mkdir under ftp is implemented by the ftp server, not by calling /bin/mkdir no such options as -p,
what you should do is

mkdir foo
cd foo
mkdir bar
cd bar
mkdir baz
cd baz

If you still want your original construct, you can also do it like this:

#!/bin/bash
foo() {
    local r
    local a
    r="$@"
    while [[ "$r" != "$a" ]] ; do
        a=${r%%/*}
        echo "mkdir $a"
        echo "cd $a"
        r=${r#*/}
    done
}
DIRECTORY="foo/bar/baz"
FILE="test.pdf"         
HOST="testserver"           
USER="test"         
PASS="test"         

ftp -n $HOST <<END_SCRIPT
quote USER $USER
quote PASS $PASS
$(foo "$DIRECTORY")
binary
put $FILE
quit
END_SCRIPT