UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

This is a line from my crontab:

12 12 * * * /home/users/ElburdNDL/www/backups/adddate.php

The permissions of the script is 755 it should execute ok....but it doesn't.

Do I somehow have to give cron the path to PHP or something?

If so, how exactly? Thanks.

Ed

PS Am a total newbie to Linux..

Try instead

Code:

12 12 * * * php /home/users/ElburdNDL/www/backups/adddate.php

(or possibly add the path to php before "php")


Giving an executable permission is not enough. An executable script needs a line at the top which indicates the interpreter to use. For Perl, this is like

#!/usr/bin/perl

For php, very likely it's

#!/usr/bin/php

if you would like to invoke the php script without calling php directly. This seems to work on my system with a simple test.

By the way, I think it would have been more coherent if you continue with your previous thread rather than starting a new one.

Many thanks - that did it!

Ed

In the same sense as above, would a perl execution look like

12 12 * * * perl /path/to/script.pl

Or would the #!/usr/bin/perl line of the script suffice?

THanks,
Ed

If you explicitly invoke perl or (or just any interpreter) to execute a script, as in "perl script.pl", script.pl needs not be given executable permission to run at all.

If you would like to directly invoke the script, e.g. "./script.pl", the file needs the top #! line in order to tell which interpreter to use to execute it, and the file needs to have executable permission set.

Thanks.

I've tried both:

and

(the latter having the #!/usr/bin/perl -w first line)

and neither work

What's wrong?

Calling the php script now works fine..!

E

PS As an adition, the script works fine when run through IE..

Ok. You need to learn how to troubleshoot a problem, step by step. Don't jump too far at a time or you'd easily lose track.

First, neglect the cron. Make sure you can run the script on the command line. i.e. run

Code:

perl /home/users/ElburdNDL/www/cgi-bin/script.pl

and look at the output. See if that gives what you expect.

If this is not ok, what is the error? To help others diagnose you need to give further details.

Before you are sure the script runs ok, do not put it for use with cron as it is not going to work either.