Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi,

Recently I wrote a shell script where I have defined LOG_DATE=$(date +"%d%b") at the start of the script (which should give the date in format '20Oct') and then called this date last on in the script. There is no problem when the script is executed manually ie. when I type "script_name.sh" at command line; However, whenever the script is added to my crontab it seems to execute OK, but LOG_DATE doesn't seem to take value '20Oct' but instead '%d%M' (it doesn't seem to be interpreting the date).

Can anyone think of a reason that this may have happened or has anyone experienced simlilar problems? Any help appreciated, thanks.

And the problem is ?

/Peter

A shot in the dark! Problems like this always tend to be with quoting. Can you clarifiy this line "but LOG_DATE on linger seems" Not sure why your version doesnt work. Try this (back tick, single tick, single tick, back tick)
LOG_DATE=`date +'%d%b' `

I'll give it a go, but it seems strange that it interpret the date fine when the script is executed manually, but not when its run on cron. Can you think of any reason why this might be?

What is the very first line of the script? And what shell do you use?

I use the korn shell, and there is another script running on cron tha uses the same date function and calls it last on in the script successfully. The thing that puzzles me most is why the date doesn't interpret correctly when run on cron but there's no problem when it's executed automatically... :/

First line of script = !/bin/ksh