Powershell download files with today's date from FTP server

Question

$today = (get-date).Date  


$dateStr = '{0:yyyyMMdd}' -f $today

New-Item C:\Desktop\test_$dateStr -ItemType directory 

ftp
open
Server Name
UserID
Password
dir
lcd C:\Desktop\test_$dateStr
prompt
binary
mget *$dateStr.txt   
mget *$dateStr.zip  
bye

I am try to download today's txt files and zip files from FTP server. The files are named test_20131001 so I set up as $dateStr but it is not working. FTP server can not find the folder that I create before I enter FTP server. lcd C:\\Desktop\\test_$dateStr does not work...

Answer 1

lcd and mget are interpreted by FTP.exe, not PowerShell. FTP.exe isn't going to understand $dateStr . Take a look at this FTPClient module as one way to automate FTP download in PowerShell.