Very fast response on this one, and yes, a simple answer, right out of the
crontab man page:
The cron program runs the command named in the sixth field at the
specified
date and time. If you include a percent sign (%) in the sixth field, cron
treats everything that precedes it (in that field) as the command invoca-
tion, and makes all that follows it available to standard input, unless
you
escape the percent sign (\%) or double quote it ("%").
Working entry is:
45 13 * * * script.ksh arg1 -arg2.`date +\%y\%m\%d`
Thanks to Dr Blinn, Pat O'Brien, Martin Moore, Paul Sand, Ken Peacock, Dan
Harrington and George Gallen.
My apologies for asking a question so obviously documented.
Bill
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Skulley, William [SMTP:William.Skulley_at_rfets.gov]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2002 1:30 PM
> To: tru64-unix-managers_at_ornl.gov
> Subject: Silly Cron/Script Questions
>
> I have a cronjob:
>
> 0 0 * * * script.ksh arg1 arg2.`date +%y%m%d`
>
> arg2 is an output filename. When run from cron, the file comes out
> "arg2."
> with no date information tacked on. Running the exact same command line
> from a shell (sh) prompt gets the date information properly (filename
> arg2.020604). I get the following mail from cron:
>
> *************************************************
> Cron: The previous message is the standard output
> and standard error of the following crontab command:
>
> script.ksh arg1 arg2.`date +
>
>
> If I add double quotes and change the cron entry to:
>
> 0 0 * * * "script.ksh arg1 arg2.`date +%y%m%d`"
>
> the job does not run and I get the following mail from cron:
>
> sh: script.ksh arg1 arg2.: not found
>
>
> *************************************************
> Cron: The previous message is the standard output
> and standard error of the following crontab command:
>
> "script.ksh arg1 arg2.`date +
>
>
> What am I missing? I'm sure its something really obvious and silly but I
> can't for the life of me see it.
>
> Thanks
> Bill Skulley
Received on Tue Jun 04 2002 - 19:48:05 NZST