topic Re: absolute path name in Operating System - HP-UX

absolute path name

khilari — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 13:32:20 GMT

Hi guys, well we have a cron job running where we are using ~directoryname but it is not working. Now, if i give it absolute path name like /home/directoryname will it work.

Any suggestions.

Re: absolute path name

Pete Randall — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 13:35:39 GMT

Yes - use always use absolute path names for cron jobs. When run through cron, jobs end up having a very sparse environment: variables are not set, the PATH is minimal. These things need to be taken into account when you write your script.

Check the man page for crontab to see the environment limitations.

Pete

Re: absolute path name

Torsten. — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 13:35:50 GMT

from the crontab manpage:

"cron supplies a default environment for every shell, defining:

HOME=user's-home-directory
LOGNAME=user's-login-id
PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:.
SHELL=/usr/bin/sh
...
"

If you like to have another environment, you have to create it.

Re: absolute path name

Mel Burslan — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 13:47:01 GMT

To the best that I know, tilde substitution does not work in a cron initiated session. You have to provide the full path to any file you desire to use.

Re: absolute path name

DCE — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 13:56:51 GMT

normally you need to use absolute paths in cron.

however, if you are performing a su comand from the the root crontab such as su - oracle -c "dbshut" then the oracle ID's environment gets loaded before the command is issued.

However, even in this case, you are better off using absolute paths in order to ensure the commands works as expected.

Re: absolute path name

Victor Fridyev — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 14:37:58 GMT

Hi,

The substitution ~something works, even in crontab if "something" is a username, it does not mean /home/something.

HTH