Re: Can't get this crontab entry to work
On Tue, Dec 16, 2003 at 12:30:50PM -0500, Derrick 'dman' Hudson wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 16, 2003 at 04:45:06PM +0000, Colin Watson wrote:
> | On Tue, Dec 16, 2003 at 08:22:43AM -0800, David wrote:
> | > 12 8 * * * tar -cf /lin2/backup_deb_`date +%m%d%y` /home /etc /var/www
> | >
> | > I keep getting the following error message in my mailbox from cron:
> | >
> | > /bin/sh: -c: line 1: unexpected EOF while looking for matching ``'
> | > /bin/sh: -c: line 2: syntax error: unexpected end of file
> | >
> | > What am I doing wrong?
> | >
> | > I was able to run the cron job without the time stamp, but now I really
> | > would like to add it and I don't seem to be having much luck. I think
> | > its the backtics that are giving me the problem.
> |
> | No, it's the percent signs, which are special in crontabs. See 'man 5
> | crontab' and search for %.
> |
> | Try this instead:
> |
> | 12 8 * * * tar -cf /lin2/backup_deb_`date +\%m\%d\%y` /home /etc /var/www
>
> See crontab(5). '%' is an end-of-command delimiter in cron jobs.
> This is why it needs to be escaped.
>
> -D
>
> --
> If you want to know what God thinks about money,
> just look at the people He gives it to.
> -- Old Irish Saying
>
> www: http://dman13.dyndns.org/~dman/ jabber: dman@dman13.dyndns.org
Thanks to all. That must have been it.
-david
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