Bash script sftp only downloading files to same directory script is in

Question

I have a weird problem. I am trying to download a file from a ftp server to a different directory than what the bash script is running. If I do it manually everything works fine. I can connect type

get sampleFile.csv /path/to/directory/

Trying to put that in a bash script doesn't work. I get all the same output as doing it manaully

/ftp/sampleFile.csv 100%  384     0.4KB/s   00:01

but the file isn't in the directory or anywhere that I can find on my server. I have tried

sftp ***** << EOF
get sampleFile.csv /path/to/directory/
quit
EOF

and

cd /path/to/directory/
sftp ***** << EOF
get sampleFile.csv
quit
EOF    

and

sftp ***** << EOF
lcd /path/to/directory
get sampleFile.csv
quit
EOF    

All of these work doing it manually.

The only thing that works is

sftp ***** << EOF
get sampleFile.csv
quit
EOF 

This puts the file in the same directory the bash script is in and it shows up. Any ideas whats going on?

Answer 1

Add lcd path/you/want/to/save/to before the get line of your sftp script.

 ❯ sftp localhost
Connected to localhost.
# can't get sampleFile.csv because lpwd isn't what I think
sftp> get sampleFile.csv path/to/directory
File "/home/ryan/sampleFile.csv" not found.
sftp> lpwd
Local working directory: /home/ryan
# this will grab the file I want, but save it into `lpwd` again
sftp> get path/to/directory/sampleFile.csv
Fetching /home/ryan/path/to/directory/sampleFile.csv to sampleFile.csv
# pretend I want to save it locally in /tmp... so: lcd /tmp
sftp> lcd /tmp
sftp> get path/to/directory/sampleFile.csv
Fetching /home/ryan/path/to/directory/sampleFile.csv to sampleFile.csv