Use date with touch to create new file with date based name
 

I am using CRON to create a new, blank file, every minute, in a specific location on my web server. After web searching, and reading man pages, I get the impression that the following command is supposed to work:

touch /home/mydomain/var/folder/attachments/`date +%H%M`.txt

This should give me a new file with a file name that is the current hour and minute.

However, when executed, the CRON mailer reports:

touch /home/mydomain/var/folder/attachments/`date +

/bin/sh: -c: line 0: unexpected EOF while looking for matching ``'
/bin/sh: -c: line 1: syntax error: unexpected end of file

So, it looks like shell is seeing the plus (+) sign as an EOF

Obviously, nothing get created.

What would be the easiest, single line command to create an empty file, at a given location, with a time based file name?

Jim Craig

That command works fine for me. Have you tried simply running that command from the commandline? If so, and it works, what does your crontab entry look like?

Hi,

Cron sees the % as being special, you need to escape it (\%).

Hope this helps.

Or simply put the command in a script and execute the script every minute.

Excellant! Problem Solved
 

Changed my original line:
touch /home/mydomain/var/folder/attachments/`date +%H%M`.txt
to:
touch /home/mydomain/var/folder/attachments/`date +\%H\%M`.txt

And everything just works now!

I figured something had to be escaped, but wasn't sure. Will have to read up on CRON a little more.

Thanks for the quick solution.

Jim Craig

You're welcome ;)