Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi
I am new to this cron jobs in Unix. I gave the following entry to print the date in out_file every minute.
I used crontab -e option.

1 * * * * /usr/bin/date 1>>out_file 2>>&1

But it doesnt seem to be working. No error is also raised. The out_file itself is not created in the HOME directory. I am working in AIX version 5. Is there any environmental variable setting to use this crontab? Any kind of help would be greatful.

Every minute would be all asterisks. Your cronjob is set to run when the minute = 1. That is once an hour at 2:01 3:01 4:01, etc.

See what i get when i try to run the command:

Code:

[root@somewhere1 output]# /usr/bin/date 1>>out_file 2>>&1
-bash: syntax error near unexpected token `&'
[root@somewhere1 output]#

try this instead:

Code:

/usr/bin/date 1>>out_file 2>&1

also make sure that you give correct path of the date command. to know where lies the date command, type:

Code:

whereis date

or

Code:

which date

Perderabo, I tried using all *, then also it is not working. Its the same.
And Yogesh, I tried as u said as well, still it is the same. Well, I gave the path of date command after doing where only. So, the date command path is correct.

That will run at 1 minute past the hour. To run every minute:

Code:

* * * * * /usr/bin/date 1>>out_file 2>>&1

Suddenly it seems to be working now...I gave the following entry.
* * * * * /usr/bin/date 1>>out_file 2>&1

However, I would like to know if I can echo it to the screen, like for eg. if I say
* * * * * echo "Hi"
it is not working. I feel its because the cron would be confused as to which tty it has to echo. So, to avoid this problem, what should i do?

What screen?

cron doesn't know anything about any screen, and it is not connected to a terminal.

You can send it to a virtual terminal, e.g., /dev/tty1