make wget overwrite a file if already exist and download it everytime regardless it being changed on remote server

Question

When I do wget twice, it does not overwrite the file but instead appends a .1 to the name.

$ wget https://cdn.sstatic.net/askubuntu/img/logo.png
...
Saving to: ‘logo.png’
...

$ wget https://cdn.sstatic.net/askubuntu/img/logo.png
...
Saving to: ‘logo.png.1’
...

I want wget to overwrite the logo.png file:

• Regardless if it exists already
• Regardless if it isn't changed on remote server, want it to be re-downloaded again (can't use -N flag)
• Regardless if file size is same, it is downloaded everytime with wget and replaced.
• Does not append .1 at the end of name. Keeps the same name evertime (logo.png)
• Can't use cURL or something else.
• Preferably not using the -O flag as i want to keep the original name of the file.

Is there still a way to do it? I searched but couldn't find an example?

Answer 1

There is a way to do this with wget options but it's a bit of a hack:

wget --page-requisites --no-host-directories --cut-dirs=1000 URL

Explanation:

• --page-requisites forces a download, clobbering existing files, but creates a tree hierarchy
• --no-host-directories prevents wget from creating a top dir named after the host in the URL
• --cut-dirs=1000 cuts the 1000 first directory components, effectively putting the downloaded file in the current directory

Another less hacky solution is to create a bash function for this:

wget_clobber() {
    local url=${1:?First parameter is a URL}
    wget --output-document="${url##*/}" "$url"
}

Explanation: we just use the --output-document (or -O) to force wget to write to the file named after the last part of the URL (${url##*/} is equivalent to $(basename "$url") and you can use the latter as well).

Answer 2

Download in a new temporary directory and then move the files to target directory.

DIR=$(mktemp --directory);
wget --directory-prefix="$DIR" "$URL";
mv "$DIR/"* .