UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

i try to execute the following in a crontab file and it doesn't work while the same line is OK on the Unix (AIX) shell command line.

Code:

42 15 * * 1 > /users/notes01/tata.${date +"%d%m%Y"}

it seems to be a pb related to date flags expression but i can't see why , somebody have an idea ?

regards
Christian

The reason is that "> file" is a redirection. A redirection makes only sense if there is a process which output can be redirected. If you execute the redirection on the commandline then this process is the shell itself. If you execute it from crom there is no such process and hence the construct doesn't make any sense.

I hope this helps.

Btw., what was your intention? What do you want to achieve? Maybe we can find a solution for this instead of telling you why your statement won't work.

bakunin

touch will create an empty file for you, at the expense of a process (but in crontab you need that process, I guess).

At the beginning i wanted to do :

Code:

22 15 * * 1 mv /users/notes01/toto /users/notes01/toto.${date +"%d%m%Y"}

even i changed the "date" statement , each time the flags are not taken into account , how i can do this without doing the same into a shell script ?

regards

Christian

Make it into a script, trust me on this.

Your syntax for getting the date is wrong, those should be round parentheses.