Question about gzip in cron job

what is $file and $TIME ?

you need to export these variables in the main script.

then cron job will call that main script


other tip of cron,
you need full path for any file you are dealing with.

That's just a variable in the script. They are used to create unique file name. You can just use any file name to replace $file.$TIME.

Thanks,

You don't say what error you got. If you have not already done so, direct your stdout and stderr to a file and rerun.

10 3 * * 0  yourscript > yourlogfile 2>&1

I think you will see either an error message or an unanswered warning in the log.

ok that is good, now one thing you need to add to your script in order to work from cron job is to define pathname for any command or file


so instead of
cp -p $file_record $file_record.$TIME
chmod 666 $file_record

you should us
MyHome=/home/myname/scripts
cp -p $MyHome/$file_record $MyHome/$file_record.$TIME
chmod 666 $MyHome/$file_record


Try that and let me know

One advice, use "echo" command between actions to debug

MyHome=/home/myname/scripts
echo $MyHome
cp -p $MyHome/$file_record $MyHome/$file_record.$TIME
echo $MyHome/$file_record.$TIME


and for sure at crontab you need to put output messages to output file as dt64852n said

Hamdy

Finally I figured out the problem.
The path for cron job is /usr/sbin, and gzip is only in /opt/bin (I am shocked that gzip is not in .bin and /usr/bin). Since my PATH does not include /opt/bin/ (but includes /opt/home/peri/bin under which gzip is), the script was working fine from the command mode, but not working in cron job. I changed the script to run gzip as following,
"cp -p $file_record $file_record.$TIME
chmod 666 $file_record
/opt/bin/gzip $file_record.$TIME
mv $file_record.$TIME.gz $file_record.gz
tar rvf $WORKFILE $file_record.gz
/bin/rm  $file_record.gz"
Note that the gzip call is using full path. The script is working fine now.
I have sent a comment to sun to suggest them add gzip in /bin, /usr/sbin and any possible pathes.

Thanks for all your suggestions and advices,