LinuxQuestions.org - using a shell script to close a minicom log file and open a new one.

Hi,

I have built a microprocessor board which will allow me to log my hydro usage. It involves a photo diode on my hydro meter which counts flashes.

Every 10 minutes I send the kWh out the serial port. Obviously I am power conscious and so I am connecting this to one of my servers which is on anyway.

I am then using minicom to collect the data but it is very hard to look at as one big fat file. What I want to do is have a cron job call a shell script to close the previous days log file and then start up another one for the present day.

So, at say 12:05 am, close off the present minicom log file and start a new file using the new date as the file name.

So, I will have one file per day.

I did figure out how to start minicom and start logging with a file name made from the present date.

Here is my script so far:

Code:

#!/bin/bash

# By -sdr- 14/08/2011

# Revision 1.0 14/08/2011



# Make script crontab friendly:

cd $(dirname $0)



# datadir is the directory you want podcasts saved to:

datadir=$(date +%Y-%m-%d_%H:%M:%S)



# start minicom with file name of todays date

minicom -C $datadir.txt

What I don't know how to do is cleanly close the log file and shut down minicom.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you - Steve