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Pandurang Waghulde

At my workplace me and one of my colleague used to transfer files like database dumps etc. for projects from one machine to another.

I came across netcat (nc command) and when we tried that it just worked so quickly, i got surprised with the speed with which it got transferred. :) So i wrote applescript that transfers file using netcat, with dialog boxes.

netcat.scpt
tell application "SystemUIServer"
  set actionSelected to the button returned of (display dialog "What you want to do?" buttons {"Send file", "Receive file"} default button 2)


  if actionSelected = "Send file" then
    set filepath to POSIX path of (choose file)
    display dialog "Please enter IP address of receiver:" default answer ""
    set ipAddress to text returned of result
    if ipAddress = "" then
      repeat
        display dialog "IP address cant be blank,Please enter IP address of receiver:" default answer ""
        set ipAddress to text returned of result
        if ipAddress is not equal to "" then exit repeat
      end repeat
    end if
  else
    display dialog "Please enter a file name with extension:" default answer ""
    set filename to text returned of result
    if filename = "" then
      repeat
        display dialog "Filename cant be blank,Please enter a file name with extension:" default answer ""
        set filename to text returned of result
        if filename is not equal to "" then exit repeat
      end repeat
    end if
  end if


  display dialog "Please enter a port number ,must be integer:" default answer ""
  set portnumber to text returned of result


  if portnumber = "" then
    repeat
      display dialog "Port number cant be blank, Please enter a port number, must be integer:" default answer ""
      set portnumber to text returned of result
      if portnumber is not equal to "" then exit repeat
    end repeat
  end if


  if actionSelected = "Send file" then
    display dialog "Sending"
    do shell script "nc " & ipAddress & " " & portnumber & " < " & filepath & " -"
    "sending"
  else
    display dialog "Receiving"
    do shell script "nc -l " & portnumber & " > " & filename
    "receiving"
  end if


end tell

after saving(netcat.scpt) this file to your machine just type in your terminal osascript your_path/netcat.scpt It will simplify your work to transfer file rather than remembering syntax for netcat OR if you want more shortcut to do this you can add it to .bash_profile file

Terminal window
alias netcat='osascript your_path/netcat.scpt'

and then just type netcat in terminal.. enjoy :)