I'm using ftplib to transfer files.  Everything is working great.  Now I'm trying to get the size of the target file before downloading.

First, I tried just getting size with ftp.size(filename).  Server complained that I can't do that in ascii mode.
Then I tried setting binary mode using ftp.sendcmd("binary") and ftp.sendcmd("bin").  In both cases the server complained "500 binary Not understood"

Can ftplib get size of a file before downloading in this instance?  I don't control the FTP server and can't change how it's behaving.
Thanks
Ftplib can get the size of a file before downloading. As the documentation says:

FTP.size(filename)
  Request the size of
  the file named filename on the server.
  On success, the size of the file is
  returned as an integer, otherwise None
  is returned. Note that the SIZE
  command is not standardized, but is
  upported by many common server
  implementations

Apparently your server doesn't support this feature.
Python ftplib can't get size of file before download?