Shell Programming and Scripting

You're missing the point. The code you have does call BackupRecords --log once at the start of your script and uses the string returned by that call throughout the rest of your script. Therefore, the string returned by that command must contain something that is re-evaluating the date every time $BUPLOG is evaluated.

If you won't show us the code for BackupRecords, it is REALLY REALLY hard for us to tell you how to fix it to do what you want.

Set BUPLOG to be readonly by doing typeset -x -r BUPLOG=$(BackupRecords --log "$src")so the script will throw an error every time it's changed...

We have seen the script. There is nothing in it that changes BUPLOG after it is initially set. As I have said before, BUPLOG must be a string something like:

Code:

BackupLog$(date +'%Y%m%d%H%M%S')

so when $BUPLOG is expanded it yields a value based on the current time; not the time when BackupRecords --log was executed at the start of the script.

RudiC:
I use BUPLOG twice and that is the problem:
Using BUPLOG twice means I call $(BackupRecords --log "$src") twice which means I get two different log file names. And remember, $(BackupRecords --log "$src") is identical to "$(date +'%Y%b%d%H%M%s')".
I get the same results with BackupRecords --log "$src" and "$(date +'%Y%b%d%H%M%s')": multiple file names. So how can I store the current date and time in an environment variable once and use the environment variable multiple times and not have it change.

Thanks
Siegfried

Expanding $BUPLOG twice DOES NOT invoke BackupRecords --log "$src" twice.

I repeat for at least the third time: Please show us the code that implements your BackupRecords utility so we can help you fix it to return an unchanging backup file pathname!

No. export BUPLOG=$(BackupRecords --log "$src") assigns or defines the variable, using or expanding it like $BUPLOG does NOT change it.

I have to second Don Cragun's request for the script/source.

Unless you show what you're doing, further help won't be possible.

RudiC:
I do use it (BUPLOG) over again and the problem is that each time I use it gets a new time and I get a new log file name. I was hoping that the value of BUPLOG would be frozen in the initial export command and I would get same value every time I use $BUPLOG but this is not the sdfsdf. Remember: all "BackupRecords.exe --log" is doing is returning the current time.
Is there anyway I can force the execution of "BackupRecords.exe --log" to happen only once during the export command?

Thanks
Siegfried