To keep the forums high quality for all users, please take the time to format your posts correctly.

First of all, use Code Tags when you post any code or data samples so others can easily read your code. You can easily do this by highlighting your code and then clicking on the # in the editing menu. (You can also type code tags [code] and [/code] by hand.)

Second, avoid adding color or different fonts and font size to your posts. Selective use of color to highlight a single word or phrase can be useful at times, but using color, in general, makes the forums harder to read, especially bright colors like red.

Third, be careful when you cut-and-paste, edit any odd characters and make sure all links are working property.

Thank You.

The UNIX and Linux Forums

*****************************************************

You don't want to hardcode, that's ok.
But wouldn't it be more helpful if you'd just check which day today is ie. with the Unix week day like:

Code:

date +%w
5

where it's output number is read as following

Code:

1 = monday
2 = tuesday
3 = wednesday
4 = thursday
5 = friday
6 = saturday
0 = sunday

You could check which day it is and then decide in a case construct for example which tape to use.

Why should it work? In your excerpts I can't see any definition of $TAPE_BACKUP.

The whole thing could be automated, including your sudo and backup commands. As said, I would try to get the current date 1st and then decide by this which tape to use.