6.2.9 The get command: fetch a file from the server

To download a file from the server and store it on your local PC, you use the get command.

In its simplest form, you just use this with a file name:

get myfile.dat

If you want to store the file locally under a different name, specify the local file name after the remote one:

get myfile.dat newname.dat

This will fetch the file on the server called myfile.dat, but will save it to your local machine under the name newname.dat.

To fetch an entire directory recursively, you can use the -r option:

get -r mydir
get -r mydir newname

(If you want to fetch a file whose name starts with a hyphen, you may have to use the -- special argument, which stops get from interpreting anything as a switch after it. For example, ‘get -- -silly-name-’.)