This very simple script is used to backup a 
remote directory of tarred and zipped files. 

I'd be curous about better ways to do this. 
In particular, I'm interested in a better 
way to test if a remote file is a directory 
or a file or a better way to determine if a file has already been copied<P>

#~/usr/local/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Net::FTP;

my $host='myhost.org';
my $uname='backup';
my $pword='really_secure';

my $rdir='/backup';
my $ldir='D:/archives/brave-backup';


#########################################
#                                       #
# no user server servicable parts below #
#                                       #
#########################################

my $ftp = Net::FTP->new($host, Debug => 0,
			Passive =>1, Hash=>1) 
	or die("$@ couldn't construct ftp object");

print "logging on to $host\n";
$ftp->login($uname,$pword)
	or die("couldn't login to $host, as $uname\n");

$ftp->cwd($rdir)
	or die("couldn't cd to remote dir: $rdir\n");

my @r_files=$ftp->ls()
	or die("couldn't cd to list dir: $rdir\n");

chdir($ldir)
	or die("couldn't open to local dir: $ldir\n");

opendir(DH,'.')
	or die("couldn't cd to local dir: $ldir\n");

my @l_files=readdir(DH) 
	or die ("couldn't list local dir: $ldir\n");

closedir(DH) 
	or die("couldn't close local dir: $ldir");

my %backed_up_files;
foreach (@l_files){
	$backed_up_files{$_}=1;
}

$ftp->binary()
	or die("couldn't set mode to BINARY\n");
foreach(@r_files){
	
	if (!$backed_up_files{$_} && !Is_Dir($_)){
		print "\tgetting $_\n";
		$ftp->get($_)
			or die("couldn't get remote file: $_");
	}
}

$ftp->quit;

sub Is_Dir($){
	my $maybe_dir=shift;
	my $result=$ftp->cwd($maybe_dir);
	$ftp->cwd($rdir); #return to our original dir
	return $result;
}