Download files from an FTP server containing given string using Python

Question

I\'m trying to download a large number of files that all share a common string (DEM) from an FTP sever. These files are nested inside multiple directories. For

Answer 1

The answer by @Jean with the local pattern matching is the correct portable solution adhering to FTP standards.

Though as most FTP servers do support non-standard wildcard use with file listing commands, you can almost always use a simpler and mainly more efficient solution like:

files = ftp.nlst("*DEM*")
for f in files:
    with open(f, 'wb') as fh:
        ftp.retrbinary('RETR ' + f, fh.write)