Interpret * as character

[mpezeur]

I'd like to write a script that will parse the crontab and report jobs that will run the next day. Using the read command to read each line, into variables minute,hr,dom,mon,dow,cmd. When the read command sees the * character in a cronjob, it converts the output to all files in the directory. What's the best way to parse the fields in the crontab, interpreting * as a character itself, so I can say in a case statement, when dow=* then command will run everyday of the week ?

 

[comtec17]

use double quotes "*"

 

[MoshiachNow]

I would say - single quotes - '*'

"Long live king Moshiach !"

http://www.7for70.com/

 

[donttreadonme]

Y'all decide for yourselves:

#!/bin/ksh

char=*
print double "$char"
print none $char
print single '$char'
print single double '"$char"'
print double single "'$char'"
print backslash \$char
Returns the following:

double *
none 0 19776Work. 1q 26146excludedirs 26146mkdirback.exec 27164Work. 27202Work.
single $char
single double "$char"
double single '*'
backslash $char

And of course from the command line:

print * #prints everything
print \* #prints *