UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

No, I meant in the script that you call from cron.
Is it possible to post more of your script?


to find your shell, type into the unix command line:

Code:

echo $SHELL

RIght. When typing echo $shell it returns

/bin/tcsh

The way I get to the window where I enter the cron commands, is by typing "crontab -e" at the first window I come to when I enter my username and password.

This then takes me to a page where I put the cron commands, and this works fine, for a simple filename with no dates or anything.

So where exactly do I enter the today variable?

Many thanks for all the help,
Ed

Most uses of cron in my experience is to call a script at a certain time(s). This allows for much more flexibility- edit the script, not the cron.

For example a line in cron would be like this (the way this line is set up, the script "run_me" will run every day at 12pm)...

0 12 * * * /export/home/jim/run_me


Now in the directory /export/home/jim you would have a script with execute permissions. In that script would be something like this.:

TODAY=`date +%Y%m%d`
LOG=backup${TODAY}.sql

sql_backup >> $LOG