Using variables in ftp connection by cmd

Question

How I can use variables in ftp? This is what have i done: file a.bat:

set file=test ftp -s:b.txt IP

file b.txt

user password get %

Answer 1

The reason the %-artifact didn't work in the BAT file was that that token was never seen and replaced. Just as in a UNIX shell script, $-substitutions are performed when those lines are collected and tokenized. Since the line containing the %file% was input to FTP, it was collected and parsed by FTP, not by the "DOS" shell.

In UNIX, you can solve this problem by piping the directives through FTP. That is to say, while this (where $1 is a filename parameter supplied on the command line):

ftp << FTP_CMDS  
user joe  
pass joesPassword  
get $1  
quit  
FTP_CMDS

wouldn't work, THIS:

(echo user joe;  
 echo pass joesPassword;  
 echo get $1;  
 echo quit ) | ftp

WOULD work.