Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi All,

I created a shell script and it works perfectly fine when I run from the command. But the same does not work as expected when I call it from a cron job.

Here is the shell script(scan.sh):

#
#
#Which directory to scan for files?
SCANDIR="/cmb/data/exstream/mbui/mb_requests/templeton/";

#which is the working directory?
WORKDIR="/cmb/data/exstream/temp/"

#Which directory to place the processed files?
ARCHIVEDIR="/cmb/data/exstream/mbui/mb_requests/processed/templeton/";

#How does the processed file differ?
DIFFERSBY="_";

#Log all operations
LOGFILE="/cmb/data/exstream/scriptslogs/scan.log";

#Call Engine
ENGINECMD="/cmb/apps/dialogue/Engine -CONTROLFILE=/cmb/data/exstream/meetingbooks/mbui_control_test.txt -FILEMAP=MB_UIOPTIONS,/cmb/data/exstream/temp/"

cd $SCANDIR
for FILE in * ; do
FILENAME=$FILE
NEW=$ARCHIVEDIR$DIFFERSBY$FILENAME
cp $FILE $WORKDIR$FILE
$ENGINECMD$FILENAME
cp $WORKDIR$FILE "$NEW"
echo $ENGINECMD$FILENAME
echo "$FILE Processed and moved to Archive" >> $LOGFILE
done

And, Here is the CRONTAB entry:

1 * * * * /usr/bin/sh /cmb/data/exstream/scriptslogs/scan.sh

I am not sure if I am missing something here. Looks like the cron job is running, since it sends a failure mail if I remove the scan.sh from the path.

Please advise and Thanks All in advance for your help!!

Regards
Jana

use the shebang syntax on the first line of your script

#!<path to shell>


it also helps to know what error you are getting in your cron job.

Hi,
Thanks for the response. I tried adding the line
#!/usr/bin/sh in the shell script, but still my CRONJOB seems to be not working.
Is there anything else that I should look at!
Thanks
Jana

as i posted earlier what is the error you are getting?

Hi Optimus_P,

I want the CRONTAB to run once a minute, but it takes a while may be around 15 minutes or so to start the job. And the error in mail is given below.

///////////////////////////////////////
/cmb/apps/dialogue/Engine -CONTROLFILE=/cmb/data/exstream/meetingbooks/mbui_cont
rol_test.txt -FILEMAP=MB_UIOPTIONS,/cmb/data/exstream/temp/mb_395.csv
ld.so.1: /cmb/apps/dialogue/Engine: fatal: libodbc.so: open failed: No such file
or directory
Killed
/////////////////////////////////////////

It says No such file or directory, but actually the directory is available.
Please advice!
Thanks
Jana

Just at a glance, it looks like "libodbc.so" can't be found by the program. If you type "env" from your shell (or the one that's running this script manually), do you see a LIBPATH or similar variable? You may need to add that to the script.

It's always a good idea to duplicate a manual run and a scheduled run as closely as possible. Same directory, same variables, same syntax, etc.

most problems like this one come from cron not haveing the proper env settings.

try getting into the habbit of sourceing an env profile or declaring all the env settings you will need.

you need to add them to this path:
LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Library paths goto : LD_LIBRARY_PATH

ie: LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:<path to the missing library.>


useing cron to start a job every minute is not wise. you will run into alot of problems and you are setting yourself up for a race condition.

if you require your application to run every minute then i would look into running it from inittab.