Question

I have the following script to automate uploading a file to a remote server. The problem is that the password I have been given is full of special characters which are killing the login process.

Here is a changed version of the characters:

j7~]%&X

When using a normal FTP application there isn’t a problem. I have wrapped the password in quotes and have also tried using a ^ to escape the percentage and ampersand. However, it doesn’t work. Also, I can’t tell what the actual password is that is being sent.

What could be going wrong or how do I reveal the password before it is sent?

:Source = http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows/how-to-automate-ftp-uploads-from-the-windows-command-line/

@echo off
echo user myloginname> ftpcmd.dat
echo mypassword>> ftpcmd.dat
echo bin>> ftpcmd.dat
echo put %1>> ftpcmd.dat
echo quit>> ftpcmd.dat
ftp -n -s:ftpcmd.dat myserver
del ftpcmd.dat

SOLUTION

As mentioned below, I used the “type” command to see what was actually in the ftpcmd.dat. It turns out that, through a lot of trial an error and reading up on escape characters that you use different escape characters for different special characters!!!

For an ampersand use a caret, and for the percentage use a percentage. So, given my password:

j7~]%&X

the resulting password would be:

j7~]%%^&X

Answer 1

In your case you could simply type your file to reveal the password, just before you delete the file.

But it’s better to use the delayed expansion, because then the special characters lose their “special” behaviour, even carets and percent signs.

@echo off
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
set /p passwd=Enter pwd
echo user myloginname> ftpcmd.dat
echo mypassword>> ftpcmd.dat
echo bin>> ftpcmd.dat
echo put !passwd! >> ftpcmd.dat
echo quit>> ftpcmd.dat
type ftpcmd.dat
ftp -n -s:ftpcmd.dat myserver

The second problem is the ftp command, where the characters also need escaping.
Perhaps (like Vicky wrote) the backslash could work.
You can place it before each single character, by using a for-loop