How to allow wget to overwrite files

Question

Using wget command, how do I allow/instruct to overwrite my local file everytime, irrespective of how many times I invoke.

Let's say, I want to download a file from the location: http://server/folder/file1.html

Here, whenever I say wget http://server/folder/file1.html, I want this file1.html to be overwritten in my local system irrespective of the time it is changed, already downloaded, etc. My intention/use case here is that when I call wget, I'm very sure that I want to replace/overwrite the existing file.

I've tried out the following options, but each option is intended/meant for some other purpose.

1. -nc => --no-clobber
2. -N => Turn on time-stamping
3. -r => Turn on recursive retrieving

Answer 1

wget -q http://www.whatever.com/filename.txt -O /path/filename.txt 

-q is quiet mode so you can throw it in a cron without any output from the command

Answer 2

Use curl instead?

curl http://server/folder/file1.html > file1.html

Answer 3

I don't think you can do it unless you also download the directories (so pass the -x flag). If you know what the file is, you can do use -O filename, so for example:
wget http://yourdomain.com/index.html -O index.html

Answer 4

Untried: maybe you can work with wget -r --level=0.

Another possibility: curl -O overwrites (but it uses a different way of choosing the file name, which may or may not matter to you).

Answer 5

Why not put a small wrapper around the wget in your script?

The script could move all the files to a temporary location, then wget the remote files / web pages.

On success delete the files in the temporary location. On failure move the files back and raise an error.

There isn't a simple way to do what you want using just wget unless you know specifically the name of all files, in which case the -O option will allow you to force the filename of the file downloaded.

Answer 6

Like this:

wget -q $URL > $FILE

Answer 7

OK - all the answers look confusing (Like 10 random color of wires, which one would i cut now!! blue one or red one!!, if i now do the blue one it may explode. lol )

i need a correct answer which works and bullet proof. Let me put some input/output :)

[curl]

Test 1: -------------------------------------------------------- [FAIL]

$ touch /var/www/html/video/filmfr2.avi;
$ touch /tmp/filmfr2.avi;

$ date; cd /tmp; curl -O http://localhost:7007/video/filmfr2.avi; ll filmfr2.avi;
Mon Jan 23 16:36:17 CET 2012
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0
-rw-rw-r-- 1 sun sun 0 Jan 23 16:32 filmfr2.avi


Test 2: ---------------------------------------------------------- [OK]

$ touch /var/www/html/video/filmfr2.avi;
$ touch /tmp/filmfr2.avi;
$ date; cd /tmp; curl -O http://localhost:7007/video/filmfr2.avi > /tmp/filmfr2.avi ; ll filmfr2.avi;
Mon Jan 23 16:38:24 CET 2012
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0
-rw-rw-r-- 1 sun sun 0 Jan 23 16:38 filmfr2.avi

[wget]

Test 3: ----------------------------------------------------------- [FAIL]


$ touch /var/www/html/video/filmfr2.avi;
$ touch /tmp/filmfr2.avi;
$ date; cd /tmp; wget -q http://localhost:7007/video/filmfr2.avi -O /tmp/filmfr2.avi ; ll filmfr2.avi
Mon Jan 23 16:41:33 CET 2012
-rw-rw-r-- 1 sun sun 0 Jan 23 16:33 filmfr2.avi

Test 4: ------------------------------------------------------------ [OK]

$ touch /var/www/html/video/filmfr2.avi;
$ touch /tmp/filmfr2.avi;
$ date; cd /tmp; wget -q http://localhost:7007/video/filmfr2.avi > /tmp/filmfr2.avi ; ll filmfr2.avi
Mon Jan 23 16:43:07 CET 2012
-rw-rw-r-- 1 sun sun 0 Jan 23 16:43 filmfr2.avi

Answer 8

This option works

wget -N http://server/folder/file1.html