Upload files using SFTP in Python, but create directories if path doesn't exist

Question

I want to upload a file on a remote server with Python. I'd like to check beforehand if the remote path is really existing, and if it isn't, to create it. In pseudocode:

if(remote_path not exist):     create_path(remote_path) upload_file(local_file, remote_path) 

I was thinking about executing a command in Paramiko to create the path (e.g. mkdir -p remote_path). I came up with this:

# I didn't test this code  import paramiko, sys  ssh = paramiko.SSHClient() ssh.connect(myhost, 22, myusername, mypassword) ssh.exec_command('mkdir -p ' + remote_path) ssh.close  transport = paramiko.Transport((myhost, 22)) transport.connect(username = myusername, password = mypassword)  sftp = paramiko.SFTPClient.from_transport(transport) sftp.put(local_path, remote_path) sftp.close()  transport.close() 

But this solution doesn't sound good to me, because I close the connection and then reopen it again. Is there a better way to do it?

Answer 1

SFTP supports the usual FTP commands (chdir, mkdir, etc...), so use those:

sftp = paramiko.SFTPClient.from_transport(transport) try:     sftp.chdir(remote_path)  # Test if remote_path exists except IOError:     sftp.mkdir(remote_path)  # Create remote_path     sftp.chdir(remote_path) sftp.put(local_path, '.')    # At this point, you are in remote_path in either case sftp.close() 

---

To fully emulate mkdir -p, you can work through remote_path recursively:

import os.path  def mkdir_p(sftp, remote_directory):     """Change to this directory, recursively making new folders if needed.     Returns True if any folders were created."""     if remote_directory == '/':         # absolute path so change directory to root         sftp.chdir('/')         return     if remote_directory == '':         # top-level relative directory must exist         return     try:         sftp.chdir(remote_directory) # sub-directory exists     except IOError:         dirname, basename = os.path.split(remote_directory.rstrip('/'))         mkdir_p(sftp, dirname) # make parent directories         sftp.mkdir(basename) # sub-directory missing, so created it         sftp.chdir(basename)         return True  sftp = paramiko.SFTPClient.from_transport(transport) mkdir_p(sftp, remote_path)  sftp.put(local_path, '.')    # At this point, you are in remote_path sftp.close() 

Of course, if remote_path also contains a remote file name, then it needs to be split off, the directory being passed to mkdir_p and the filename used instead of '.' in sftp.put.