Question

I need to send a very specific (non-standard) string to an FTP server:

dir 'SYS:\IC.ICAMA.' 

The case is critical, as are the style of quotes and their content.

Unfortunately, ftplib.dir() seems to use the ‘LIST’ command rather than ‘dir’ (and it uses the wrong case for this application).

The FTP server is actually a telephone switch and it’s a very non-standard implementation.

I tried using ftplib.sendcmd(), but it also sends ‘pasv’ as part of the command sequence.

Is there an easy way of issuing specific commands to an FTP server?

Answer 1

Try the following. It is a modification of the original FTP.dir command which uses ‘dir’ instead of ‘LIST’. It gives a ‘DIR not understood’ error with the ftp server I tested it on, but it does send the command you’re after. (You will want to remove the print command I used to check that.)

import ftplib  class FTP(ftplib.FTP):      def shim_dir(self, *args):         '''List a directory in long form.         By default list current directory to stdout.         Optional last argument is callback function; all         non-empty arguments before it are concatenated to the         LIST command.  (This *should* only be used for a pathname.)'''         cmd = 'dir'         func = None         if args[-1:] and type(args[-1]) != type(''):             args, func = args[:-1], args[-1]         for arg in args:             if arg:                 cmd = cmd + (' ' + arg)         print cmd         self.retrlines(cmd, func)  if __name__ == '__main__':     f = FTP('ftp.ncbi.nih.gov')     f.login()     f.shim_dir(''blast'')