title: DOS ftp listing to local file
body: <p>I'm trying to find a way to see if a file exists on an ftp site via <strong>DOS</strong>. I tried a <code>get</code> command on the file hoping that if it didn't exist it wouldn't download it to my local directory. However it seams that it still does, but it's an empty file. This doesn't work for me however because the file I'm looking for is just a empty trigger file so I can't tell the difference.</p>
  
  <p>I would like to dump a listing <strong><code>ls</code></strong> of the ftp directory to a text file on my local drive and so I try<br>
  <code>ls &gt; listing.txt</code>.
   It creates the <code>listing.txt</code> file locally but it's always empty even though there are files on the ftp site.</p>
  
  <p>What are my options with this?</p>
  
  <p>I have used <code>dir &gt; listing.txt</code> and <code>ls &gt; listing.txt</code> and every time <code>listing.txt</code> is empty even though there are files in the directories I'm running those commands on.</p>
  
  <p>Sorry if I didn't make this clear, but I'm trying to get the listing for an automated process and not simply for my visual when manually doing this.</p>