Read a file in buffer from FTP python

Question

I am trying to read a file from an FTP server. The file is a .gz file. I would like to know if I can perform actions on this file while the socket is open. I tr

Answer 1

There are two easy ways I can think of to download a file using FTP and store it locally:

1. Using ftplib:

   from ftplib import FTP
   
   ftp = FTP('ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov')
   ftp.login()
   ftp.cwd('pub/pmc')
   ftp.retrbinary('RETR PMC-ids.csv.gz', open('PMC-ids.csv.gz', 'wb').write)
   ftp.quit()
   

2. Using urllib

   from urllib import urlretrieve
   
   urlretrieve("ftp://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/PMC-ids.csv.gz", "PMC-ids.csv.gz")
   

If you don't want to download and store it to a file, but you want to process it gradually as it comes, I suggest using urllib2:

from urllib2 import urlopen

u = urlopen("ftp://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/readme.txt")

for line in u:
   print line

which prints your file line by line.