I know PC FOCUS and WebFOCUS .fex programs can handle certain DOS commands, but I'm wondering if WebFOCUS can launch a .bat file that runs a .ftp file to FTP a file to a remote FTP site. The .bat file commands look like this: "ftp -n -s_LEHMAN.ftp" where D_LEHMAN.ftp is the name of the file with the FTP commands in it. The .ftp file has the following language in it:

open ftp.Sitename.com
user username password
lcd C:\filename\
cd ftpdirectory/download
prompt off
mget *20030528*.html
quit

Any thoughts/techniques would be much appreciated?

What's wrong with !drive:\\dir\filename.bat ? If you need to dynamically change the file names and/or directories then create the bat file using -WRITE.

DOS c:\temp\test.bat

CMD c:\temp\test.bat
at my site CMD works in some places that DOS doesn't.
But for my ftp pull, i write a chunk of code dynamically with -WRITE statements (just like your code..my first statement is an open statement)
to a file that is filedeffed within my agent.
and then to run it, the command is
DOS ftp -i -s:GET.FTP
where GET.FTP is the file i've made.
I credit Duncan at Westcon for teaching me this.
works like a charm.