absolute path name

[khilari]

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.

[Pete Randall]

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

[Torsten.]

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.

[Mel Burslan]

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.

[DCE]

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.

[Victor Fridyev]

Hi,

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

HTH