Check existence of directory on local machine during ftp session - ftp

Question

I am copying a large number of files during an ftp session from a remote host to my local machine. I need to save the files in a local directory tree. My problem is that a particular directory may not exist before the session. The way I have handled this in the past is to do set up my script by first creating the directory tree and not even worrying if the directory exists and then from within the same batch file (I create the batch file using Python) I start my session and use lcd to change to the correct directory
md c:\123
md c:\234
md c:\234\2009
loginname
password
cd remotedirectory
lcd c:\123
get somefile.txt
So all of the above is written out to one batch file and I start it to run. If the directory exists when I try to create it then I see a message in the terminal window that the directory exists and since nothing bad happens I have not worried about it.
What I would really like to do is check the existence of the local directory when I am ready to move to that directory and if it does not exist it gets created but I have not found out how to do this without closing the session and restarting it so I go back to the shell.
Is there a way to do this during the ftp session while maintaining the connection with the host?

Answer 1

You can use the ! command prefix to execute CMD MD command in order to make sure a local directory is already exist. e.g.:
! md "c:\my data\download" will create c:\data\download directory if it's not yet exist (and assuming you have the required permission). If it's already exist, it'll just display a harmless error. You can also use ! md "c:\my data\download" > nul to omit the error message. Or perform other commands.
Basically, everything after the ! ftp command prefix, will be passed to CMD.EXE as cmd /c {your command(s)}. If ! is used alone, it'll escape to CMD session prompt and wait for user input. The CMD's EXIT command will close the CMD session and return to the FTP prompt.