How to implement recursive put in sftp

Command-line sftp in my Ubuntu doesn't have recursive put implemented. I found some debate from 2004 about implementing such feature with -R option switch. So I see some sort of self-made recursion as only option.

Ie.

iterate through directory listing
cd into directories
mkdir them if nonexistent
put files

I'm planning on doing this with bash, but any other language would suffice.

Rsync or scp is not an option because I don't have shell access to server. Only sftp.

Solution

Look at lftp. It's a powerful file transfer client which supports ftp, ftps, http, https, hftp, fish (file transfer over ssh shell session) and sftp. It has ftp-like interactive interface, but also allows to specify all commands at the command line. Look at mput (non recursive but handles glob patterns) and mirror (poor man's rsync) commands.

I use it with a server which only handles sftp uploads like this:

lftp -c "open -u $MYUSER,$MYPASSWORD sftp://$TARGET ; mirror -R $SOME_DIRECTORY"