title: Is it possible to read FTP files without writing them using Python?
body: <p>I am trying to read files using Python's ftplib without writing them. Something roughly equivalent to:</p>
  
  <pre><code>def get_page(url):
      try:
          return urllib.urlopen(url).read()
      except:
          return ""
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>but using FTP.</p>
  
  <p>I tried:</p>
  
  <pre><code>def get_page(path):
      try:
          ftp = FTP('ftp.site.com', 'anonymous', 'passwd')
          return ftp.retrbinary('RETR '+path, open('page').read())
      except:
          return ''
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>but this doesn't work. The only examples in the docs involve writing files using the <code>ftp.retrbinary('RETR README', open('README', 'wb').write)</code> format. Is it possible to read ftp files without writing first?</p>