HP-UX

I have a script scheduled in cron as shown below.

16 12 * * * /users/mydir/bin/process_master.ksh `date '+%Y%m%d'` >> /users/mydir/process_master.out

This script executes correctly when invoked on command line, but doesn't work the same when scheduled in crontab. Crontab is working fine with other scripts which don't have arguments passed. In this case, for some reason the date command is not getting evaluated correctly.

Even if --> `date '+%Y%m%d'` <--- is included in double quotes it justs returns null.

Any advise or suggestions please ?

Try these date formats:

Code:

$(date +\%Y\%m\%d)

or:

Code:

$(date '+%Y%m%d')

Thanks very much for the quick post.

I tried this option -> $(date +\%Y\%m\%d) and it worked fine.

On the same lines I tried escaping the % in my original command and that worked as well..

The cron entry is now like ..and works fine !!

16 12 * * * /users/mydir/bin/process_master.ksh `date +\%Y\%m\%d` >> /users/mydir/process_master.out


But do we know what could have been the problem, is it just the way cron evaluates command options ?

Unless escaped with a backslash (\) percent-signs (%) in the command will be interpreted as newline characters.