Why would a command work from the command line but not within a script?
 

I try to fetch Chappatte's comics from the 'New York Times'

For instance:

fetches September 20's. I wrote a script to automate this (generate the date) but it doesn't work. I made sure the script creates the correct command (by echoing it instead of running it).

The same happens with Heng's comics. I fetch dozens of other comics with a script.

Did you set a crontab job? Maybe a path issue then
You should give a full path for Chappatte-20160920.jpeg, not sure if cron would save it in your home, /tmp or elsewhere

I like to use autoexpect to make scripts. They tend to work more often.

why isn'tsufficient?

and for the scripting, well, show us the script to see where it fails?

It usually depends on the environment (variables). So the environment of your command line shell and your script are not the same.

1 line of code is not a 'script'.
Show us the whole script and the cron please, or else it's guessing, at best.

Second this and also noting that the question should be in a different forum. Have asked for it to be moved to either Newbie or Software.

The whole script:

All paths are correct.

Cron doesn't understand $HOME in some distros # Edited Wed Sep 21 23:39:46 UTC 2016
Full path it out?

The script works for me but since I changed the paths it may not be a true test. For the systems (debian and CentOS) that I am working with at the moment lynx is located in /usr/bin.

It depends on how cron's environment is configured. For debian $HOME is set.

Are you running this as a cron job or just from the command line? If it does not work from the command line are there any errors?

/usr/local/bin/lynx path is suspect, should be /usr/bin/lynx in Slackware

$HOME is set in cron env for Slackware as well

So everything is ok. No problem at all....


By the way can you tell us what's happened at all? Is there any error message somewhere? How did you start this script?

crontab is irrelevant to this discussion.

I run the script from the command line.

I customize lynx so it's in /usr/local/bin. I told you it was correct.

It returns 'not found'.

The same happens with package lynx on a different computer.

I get around the problem by having the script also echo the correct command line so I can copy it with gpm then run it.

I didn't want to know another way to do it (wget works) but wanted to understand why there's a difference between running it straight and in a script.

snarf (which I usually use for things like this) also doesn't work.

I overlooked the first line of the script:
Is it really written as this?

[see 'Update' first...]
What's "not found"? (probably /usr/local/bin/lynx but it 'IS' there)

Try: sh -vx yourNYTscriptfilename
and/or put in, as 2nd line: (btw, what editor do you use? vi?)
set -vx

If you create [the 'SAME way'] a script with just a simple command like ls or df .
in it, does it work ok? [maybe; you mentioned other scripts work]
Try a script [*created the 'same way'*] with just: (omit 1st !# line [space was ok])

/usr/local/bin/lynx -version

Update:

I got it [MYscript, using /bin/ls in place of ...lynx] to say ONLY:
by inserting a \r (ctrl-v ctrl-m in vi) in front of the command;
cat'ing the script looks 'ok', like post #8. (same for just ls)

Try: od -c yourNYTscriptfilename
and *carefully* look for \r or some other 'bad' character. (\n is 'good')

How [exactly] do you 'create' your 'nyt' scripts? (Microsoft 'does' \r)