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When I tried exection grep function in particular directory its working on that directory but when I am trying to execute using absolute paths grep is not working for example

 grep `date +%Y-%m-%d` /var/wwww/file/file.log >> /home/filename/file.log

The above command output getting as empty file.
Is it possible to schedule grep in crontab to match text and generate valid output ?

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  • the question you linked, does not as far as I can see handle the % problem ... it is just a rather generic explanation
    – Tobi Oetiker
    Feb 18, 2015 at 8:08
  • you may want to edit the title of this question, to reflect the problem you ran into :)
    – Tobi Oetiker
    Mar 2, 2015 at 7:35

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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The % in your crontab file gets turned into a newline character unless escaped with a backslash. Try

grep `date +\%Y-\%m-\%d` /var/wwww/file/file.log >> /home/filename/file.log

see 

man 5 crontab

for details.

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4
  • its working great from command line but how to set this as cronjob ? do you think grep works inside cron ?
    – user3585106
    Feb 18, 2015 at 7:17
  • its working as crob job too !!!!
    – user3585106
    Feb 18, 2015 at 7:24
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    the % in the crontab problem happens to me every few years as I tend to forget this special handling :)
    – Tobi Oetiker
    Feb 18, 2015 at 8:06
  • It saved my day. I just want to write a bash script for automation for present day log. I am very noob in bash script so instead of going for bash script i thought about grep and cron. They just worked for me prefectly.
    – user3585106
    Feb 18, 2015 at 8:11

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