UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I have script sourcing the profile of functional user like as below

and my .profile for functional user has below entry
now when i cron the script i am receiving the below error after execution, though i could see the output of variable when i do echo as below.
can you tell me where could be the issue, The error messase is:
syntax error at line 37: `ttyname=$' unexpected

Would the script launch by cron need that tty ?

Maybe use the excellent tool GNU screen (FTP)

maybe try backtick quote `` instead of $()

Please state the Operation System and version and the Shell you are using.
Please post the complete script, obliterating anything confidential.

If you are confident with cron, please post the output from the unix "env" command when run from cron.

I strongly suspect that the default shell for your cron is something like a Bourne Shell which does not understand "$( )" notation.

Operating System Details:
It has nothing to do with the script its just sourcing the profile of functional user and when the script executes via crontab it throwing out the below error.

Remember that a ksh script lacking either a correct first line #!abs_path_ksh or execute permissions is sent to sh as stdin, see man exec(2).

---------- Post updated at 10:16 AM ---------- Previous update was at 10:05 AM ----------

Also, crontab commands are sent first to sh, after cron metacharacter expansion. I like good logging to dated log files, not to root or email, but 'cron' likes the '%' more than 'date'! I wrote a ksh script 'cron_date' that swapped the ~ with %, so I could write cron lines like this one with daily logs:

Code:

25 * * * * my_command >>/var/tmp/my_command_log.`/usr/local/bin/cron_date '+~Y~m~d'` 2>&1

I think of something else about your issue:
You could test $TERM to see if it had been set. If you are running
something from cron, it would not have a value.

So the solution is to test if interactive:

Code:

case $- in
   *i*)  echo interactive ;;
     *)  echo not interactive ;;
esac

test to be put in your .profile...

It helps if you put all the terminal stuff in one area of your .profile and use something (I ike ttyname=$( tty 2>&1 ) != "not a tty" ) to keep out scripts with no tty.

Similarly, .profile can have ksh options in a section where you ensure the current shell is ksh not sh.

It beats maintaining multiple personal environment scripts.