OSX bash script works but fails in crontab on SFTP - macos

Question

this topic has been discussed at length, however, I have a variant on the theme that I just cannot crack. Two days into this now and decided to ping the community. THx in advance for reading..
Exec. summary is I have a script in OS X that runs fine and executes without issue or error when done manually. When I put the script in the crontab to run daily it still runs but it doesnt run all of the commands (specifically SFTP).
I have read enough posts to go down the path of environment issues, so as you will see below, I hard referenced the location of the SFTP in the event of a PATH issue...
The only thing that I can think of is the IdentityFile. NOTE: I am putting this in the crontab for my user not root. So I understand that it should pickup on the id_dsa.pub that I have created (and that has already been shared with the server)..
I am not trying to do any funky expect commands to bypass the password, etc. I dont know why when run from the cron that it is skipping the SFTP line.
please see the code below.. and help is greatly appreciated.. thx
#!/bin/bash
export DATE=`date +%y%m%d%H%M%S`
export YYMMDD=`date +%y%m%d`
PDATE=$DATE
YDATE=$YYMMDD
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
FEED="~/Dropbox/"
USER="user"
HOST="host.domain.tld"
A="/tmp/5nPR45bH"
>${A}.file1${PDATE}
>${A}.file2${PDATE}
BYEbye ()
{
rm ${A}.file1${PDATE}
rm ${A}.file2${PDATE}
echo "Finished cleaning internal logs"
exit 0
}
echo "get -r *" >> ${A}.file1${PDATE}
echo "quit" >> ${A}.file1${PDATE}
eval mkdir ${FEED}${YDATE}
eval cd ${FEED}${YDATE}
eval /usr/bin/sftp -b ${A}.file1${PDATE} ${USER}#${HOST}
BYEbye
exit 0

Answer 1

Not an answer, just comments about your code.
The way to handle filenames with spaces is to quote the variable: "$var" -- eval is not the way to go. Get into the habit of quoting all variables unless you specifically want to use the side effects of not quoting.
you don't need to export your variables unless there's a command you call that expects to see them in the environment.
you don't need to call date twice because the YYMMDD value is a substring of the DATE: YYMMDD="${DATE:0:6}"
just a preference: I use $HOME over ~ in a script.
you never use the "file2" temp file -- why do you create it?
since your sftp batch file is pretty simple, you don't really need a file for it:
printf "%s\n" "get -r *" "quit" | sftp -b - "$USER#$HOST"
Here's a rewrite, shortened considerably:
#!/bin/bash
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
FEED_DIR="$HOME/Dropbox/$(date +%Y%m%d)"
USER="user"
HOST="host.domain.tld"
mkdir "$FEED_DIR" || { echo "could not mkdir $FEED_DIR"; exit 1; }
cd "$FEED_DIR"
{
echo "get -r *"
echo quit
} |
sftp -b - "${USER}#${HOST}"