python - How to download only the latest file from SFTP server with Paramiko?

Question

I want to write script that connects to my university SFTP server and downloads the latest file with exercises. So far I've changed a little bit the code from Paramiko example, but I do not know how to download the latest file.

Here is my code :

import functools
import paramiko 

class AllowAnythingPolicy(paramiko.MissingHostKeyPolicy):
    def missing_host_key(self, client, hostname, key):
        return

adress = 'adress'
username = 'username'
password = 'password'

client = paramiko.SSHClient()
client.set_missing_host_key_policy(AllowAnythingPolicy())
client.connect(adress, username= username, password=password)

def my_callback(filename, bytes_so_far, bytes_total):
    print ('Transfer of %r is in progress' % filename) 

sftp = client.open_sftp()
sftp.chdir('/directory/to/file')
for filename in sorted(sftp.listdir()):
    if filename.startswith('Temat'):
        callback_for_filename = functools.partial(my_callback, filename)
        sftp.get(filename, filename, callback=callback_for_filename)

client.close() 

Answer 1

Use the SFTPClient.listdir_attr instead of the SFTPClient.listdir to get listing with attributes (including the file timestamp).

Then, find a file entry with the greatest .st_mtime attribute.

The code would be like:

latest = 0
latestfile = None

for fileattr in sftp.listdir_attr():
    if fileattr.filename.startswith('Temat') and fileattr.st_mtime > latest:
        latest = fileattr.st_mtime
        latestfile = fileattr.filename

if latestfile is not None:
    sftp.get(latestfile, latestfile)

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For a more complex example, see How to get the latest folder that contains a specific file of interest in Linux and download that file using Paramiko in Python?