UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi All,
There is a requirement to create a file everyday using the cronjob with the date as its name.

any suggestions for the crontab command that'll serve this purpose?

e.g.

Code:

02 30 * * * touch abcd.`date +%d.%m.%y`

needless to say.. this doesn't work..

looking fwd to lots of sugestions..

Put all the logic in a script that you call from crontab.

Then you can setup the environment, set the current directory, test the script in isolation etc.

Why not try preceding the commands with their path (eg. /usr/bin/touch abcd.`/usr/bin/date +%d.%m.%y`)?

I would also suggest putting your timestamp year.month.date, as your files will show up in order in ls listings then.

I think that I was not clear about what I want here.

All that I want is to touch a file everyday at 2:30 with name as

Code:

day.12.11.2007

i have this example of..

Code:

30 02 * * * * * * touch /home/pranav/abcd-`date +%d.%m.%y`

`

but it doesn't work, leave alone do what i want..
expecting the date command should work as it does at the prompt, but seemingly commands between ` ` are not executed becuse it IS creating the file but as "abcd-". That's it.

@porter..
Sorry, I didn't get you.. if you'd understood and ur post is still applicable.

@prowla..
thanx for pointing out..

@porter..
ohh.. i did understand your post but only now..
the point is to do it using a crontab.. i wouldn't have asked it else..

thanxes..

Not sure how useful this will be - AIX handles it just fine -

55 09 * * * touch `date +abcd.\%m.\%d.\%Y.dat`

Same thing in SUN doesn't. But an interesting problem.

If you leave off the backslashes, SUN treats the rest of the line following the % as a comment and ignores.

The only way I can think of to try and get around, is to put the command in a script, that you execute as a cron job.

'man crontab' yeilds:

Code:

     The sixth field of a line in a crontab file is a string that
     is  executed  by the shell at the specified times. A percent
     character in this field (unless escaped by \) is  translated
     to a NEWLINE character.