Software to schedule FTP download and unzip?

[SALvation]

What is the best software to automatically schedule a download from an FTP site, and then automatically unzip the downloaded file? I am working on a web application for real estate listings and the data is updated weekly on an FTP site. I'm looking for a solution so that I can automatically download the file weekly and unzip it so that I can schedule a database job to sync the data. A SQL job to copy the databases would be ideal, but the MLS company only offers their data via ZIP file on an FTP. Any ideas?

 

[MrChad]

A batch file could easily accomplish this. What OS are we talking about?

 

[SALvation]

Just Windows XP. The entire process I need to automate is:

- Download ZIP file from FTP weekly.
- Unzip ZIP file on local machine.
- Copy unzipped data (CSV file) from local machine to SQL database.
- Upload images from unzipped file to remote FTP server.

 

[MrChad]

1. Download 7-Zip, a free archive utility that supports command-line extract of ZIP files.

2. Build a script file to connect to your FTP site and download the ZIP file in question. Here's a guide that explains things. I made this sample script using Mozilla's website as an example:

open ftp.mozilla.org
anonymous
test@email.com
cd /pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/2.0/linux-i686/en-US
get firefox-2.0.tar.gz
quit

3. Determine the command line commands necessary to unzip the downloaded file via the command line. Type "C:\Program Files\7-Zip\7z.exe" in a command window to get the syntax. I used

"C:\Program Files\7-Zip\7z.exe" x C:\firefox-2.0.tar.gz -oC:\temp

to extract the downloaded file from step 2 to C:\temp.

4. Build a DTS package to import the extracted CSV in step 3 into your database. DTSRun.exe can execute this package via the command line.

5. Build another FTP script to upload the unzipped images to a remote FTP server.

6. Place the commands in steps 2-5 in a batch file.

7. Add the batch file to your scheduled tasks in Control Panel.

 

[nweaver]

I would use a scripting language. I think Dos is too limited for this, but Perl or VBScript should be able to handle this easily.

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: nweaver
I would use a scripting language. I think Dos is too limited for this, but Perl or VBScript should be able to handle this easily.

A Windows batch file, along with a couple of utility programs I mentioned, can accomplish everything he's looking for. Why complicate matters with a scripting language?