can i use wget to download specific files from a url/directory?

Question

specifying the filename works:

wget http://172.21.200.37/~username/dir_name/filename.csv

But what I want is specific files that begin with H_ like below, but i can't get this to work

wget http://172.21.200.37/~username/dir_name/H_*.csv

I get the following:

Warning: wildcards not supported in HTTP.
--2014-05-08 10:31:20--  http://172.21.200.37/~username/dir_name/H_*.csv
Connecting to 172.21.200.37:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 404 Not Found
2014-05-08 10:31:20 ERROR 404: Not Found.

Can I do this with wget or do I need another command?

try ftp if available, or ssh with rsync, or scp – j-p May 07 '14 at 22:37 — j-p, May 07 '14 at 22:37

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered May 07 '14 at 22:37

0

This could only work if the web server somehow offers a list of URLs that are valid in the /dir_name/ directory. The server might be configured to generate a human readable index if you request wget http://172.21.200.37/~username/dir_name/ but there is no requirement for it to do so.

If you do get such a list of files, you would need to call wget for each file starting with H_ in turn.

answered May 07 '14 at 22:37

Greg Hewgill

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this might be the best option thus far, just need to overwrite the existing files in the directory, or else I delete them before doing the wget – HattrickNZ May 07 '14 at 23:50

can i use wget to download specific files from a url/directory?

1 Answers1