Getting exit status code from 'ftp' command in linux shell

Question

I need to retrive the exit status code from a command line program. No worries, I used $?. But for ftp, even if it doesn\'t connect, it opens the ftp shell, so I\'m not able

Answer 1

some scripts do -

ftp -n $HOST > /tmp/ftp.worked 2> /tmp/ftp.failed <

Except that the above doesn't always work - most FTP clients always exit with a status of 0. This leads to ugly "false negatives": the file transfer fails, but the script doesn't detect the problem.

One way to verify that a file transfer took place - transfer it back:

#!/bin/sh

ftp -n << END_SCRIPT
open $1
user $2 $3
put $4
get $4 retrieval.$$
bye
END_SCRIPT

if [ -f retrieval.$$ ]
then
    echo "FTP of $4 to $1 worked"
    rm -f retrieval.$$
else
    echo "FTP of $4 did not work"
fi