crontab relative path question 1

[keak]

Say we have a shell script that refer to relative paths for files/directories:
for example:

#!/bin/sh
cp thisfile ../thatfile
cd mydir

These type of file works fine when we issue it from the command line, but when we register it as a crontab, it seems that the files/directories have to be referred to absolute path.

It is easy to change this script since its small, but what if we have a really large shell script and all of it is implemented with relative references. Is there another optino than to check every line and make it absolute?

 

[PHV]

In the crontab:
cd /path/to/dir && yourscript

Hope This Helps, PH.
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884 or FAQ181-2886

 

[TrojanWarBlade]

crontab does not preserve your environment and so when your process is started it gets a fresh, clean and empty shell to work in.
"at" and "batch" on the other hand (from memory), do indeed preserve your shell environment.


Trojan.

 

[duncdude]

PHV - i had no idea you could do that! Nice. Have a star on me.


Kind Regards
Duncan

 

[keak]

wow thanks for the quick replies,
yes PHV's method was just what I was looking for.

Thanks!