Using scp to transfer a single file into a remote folder that doesn't exist

I'm working on a python script that monitors a directory and uploads files that have been created or modified using scp. That's fine, except I want this to be done recursively, and I'm having a problem if a user creates a directory in the watch directory, and then modifies a file inside that new directory.

I can detect the directory creation and file nested file creation/modification just fine. But if I try to upload that file to the remote server, it won't work since the directory on the remote site won't exist. Is there a simple way to do this WITHOUT recursively copying the created directory? I want to avoid this because I don't want to delete the remote folder if it exists.

Also, please don't suggest rsync. It has to only use ssh and scp.

Since you have ssh, can't you just create the directory first? For example, given a file with absolute path /some/path/file.txt, issue a mkdir -p /home/path before uploading file.txt.

UPDATE: If you're looking to lower the number of transactions, a better method might be to make a tar file locally, transfer that, and untar it.

While I imagine your specific application will have its own quirks (as does mine), this may put you on the right path. Below is a short snippet from a script I use to put files onto a remote EC2 instance using Fabric built on paramiko. Also note I where I put the sudo commands as Fabric has its own "sudo" class. This is one of those quirks I was referring to. Hope this helps someone.

from fabric.api import env, run, put, settings, cd
from fabric.contrib.files import exists


'''
sudo apt-get install fabric
Initially setup for interaction with an AWS EC2 instance
At the terminal prompt run:
fab ec2 makeRemoteDirectory changePermissions putScript
'''

TARGETPATH = '/your/path/here'

def ec2():
    env.hosts = ['your EC2 Instance or remote address']
    env.user = 'user_name'
    env.key_filename = '/path/to/your/private_key.pem'

def makeRemoteDirectory():
    if not exists('%s'%TARGETPATH):
        run('sudo mkdir %s'%TARGETPATH)

def changePermissions():
    run('sudo chown -R %(user)s:%(user)s %(path)s'%{'user': env.user, 'path': TARGETPATH})

def putScript():
    fileName = '/path/to/local/file'
    dirName = TARGETPATH
    put(fileName, dirName)

It's not exactly scp, but sftp can take the -b parameter with a batch file. You can send a mkdir and a put.