Downloading a directory tree with ftplib

Question

This will not download the contents of sub-directories; how can I do so?

import ftplib
import configparser
import os

directories = []

def add_directory(lin         


        

Answer 1

This is a very old question, but I had a similar need that i wanted to satisfy in a very general manner. I ended up writing my own solution that works very well for me. I've placed it on Gist here https://gist.github.com/Jwely/ad8eb800bacef9e34dd775f9b3aad987

and pasted it below in case i ever take the gist offline.

Example usage:

import ftplib
ftp = ftplib.FTP(mysite, username, password)
download_ftp_tree(ftp, remote_dir, local_dir)

The code above will look for a directory called "remote_dir" on the ftp host, and then duplicate the directory and its entire contents into the "local_dir". It invokes the script below.

import ftplib
import os

def _is_ftp_dir(ftp_handle, name, guess_by_extension=True):
    """ simply determines if an item listed on the ftp server is a valid directory or not """

    # if the name has a "." in the fourth to last position, its probably a file extension
    # this is MUCH faster than trying to set every file to a working directory, and will work 99% of time.
    if guess_by_extension is True:
        if name[-4] == '.':
            return False

    original_cwd = ftp_handle.pwd()     # remember the current working directory
    try:
        ftp_handle.cwd(name)            # try to set directory to new name
        ftp_handle.cwd(original_cwd)    # set it back to what it was
        return True
    except:
        return False


def _make_parent_dir(fpath):
    """ ensures the parent directory of a filepath exists """
    dirname = os.path.dirname(fpath)
    while not os.path.exists(dirname):
        try:
            os.mkdir(dirname)
            print("created {0}".format(dirname))
        except:
            _make_parent_dir(dirname)


def _download_ftp_file(ftp_handle, name, dest, overwrite):
    """ downloads a single file from an ftp server """
    _make_parent_dir(dest)
    if not os.path.exists(dest) or overwrite is True:
        with open(dest, 'wb') as f:
            ftp_handle.retrbinary("RETR {0}".format(name), f.write)
        print("downloaded: {0}".format(dest))
    else:
        print("already exists: {0}".format(dest))


def _mirror_ftp_dir(ftp_handle, name, overwrite, guess_by_extension):
    """ replicates a directory on an ftp server recursively """
    for item in ftp_handle.nlst(name):
        if _is_ftp_dir(ftp_handle, item):
            _mirror_ftp_dir(ftp_handle, item, overwrite, guess_by_extension)
        else:
            _download_ftp_file(ftp_handle, item, item, overwrite)


def download_ftp_tree(ftp_handle, path, destination, overwrite=False, guess_by_extension=True):
    """
    Downloads an entire directory tree from an ftp server to the local destination

    :param ftp_handle: an authenticated ftplib.FTP instance
    :param path: the folder on the ftp server to download
    :param destination: the local directory to store the copied folder
    :param overwrite: set to True to force re-download of all files, even if they appear to exist already
    :param guess_by_extension: It takes a while to explicitly check if every item is a directory or a file.
        if this flag is set to True, it will assume any file ending with a three character extension ".???" is
        a file and not a directory. Set to False if some folders may have a "." in their names -4th position.
    """
    os.chdir(destination)
    _mirror_ftp_dir(ftp_handle, path, overwrite, guess_by_extension)