[SOLVED] Bash Script Using "date" command error

gorrillamcd · 10-18-2011, 01:05 PM

I'm still learning about writing scripts for my server, so this will probably be a fairly simple solution to my question.

I have a server running Ubuntu Server 10.04 and squid. I'm using calamaris to parse the squid logs and wrote a script to include in cron to run every day.

Code:

#!/bin/bash

DATE=`date +"%a"`
CALAMARIS="/usr/bin/calamaris"
CALAMARISOPTIONS="-a --config-file /etc/calamaris/calamaris.conf -F html-frame --output-path /var/www/calamaris --output-file ${DATE}.html"
cat /var/log/squid3/access.log | $CALAMARIS $CALAMARISOPTIONS

I use the "date +%a" command to generate the name of the html file that calamaris generates and I want it to the files like mon.html, tue.html, wed.html, and so on.

However, it is just rewriting each new daily report over thursday's file (which I believe was the day I first started using the script). Is there something wrong with my script that would cause it to do this?

Tinkster · 10-18-2011, 01:11 PM

That should just work. Just note that the generated file will
have an uppercase first letter ... so you should see
Mon.html
Tue.html

Cheers,
Tink

David the H. · 10-18-2011, 03:38 PM

You shouldn't use a single variable to hold a list of options. Whenever you have a list of items, use an array instead.

(But actually, variables (including arrays) are intended for data, not code. While it's usually ok to store options in a variable, functions should be used for setting up complex commands. http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/050 )

Also, $(..) is highly recommended over `..`

useless use of cat. You can generally just use file redirection.

Oh, And I think it's also generally recommended to make your variables lower or mixed case, to avoid conflicts with preset shell variables, which are almost universally uppercase. I personally think too many upper case words is hard to look at.

Code:

#!/bin/bash

infile=/var/log/squid3/access.log

run_calamaris() {

	local day=$( date +"%a" )
	local -a calamarisoptions

	calamarisoptions+=( '-a' '--config-file' '/etc/calamaris/calamaris.conf'  )
	calamarisoptions+=( '-F' 'html-frame' '--output-path' '/var/www/calamaris' )
	calamarisoptions+=( '--output-file' "$day.html" )

	/usr/bin/calamaris "${calamarisoptions[@]}"

}

run_calamaris <"$infile"

I believe it should work as written, as long as the command in the function takes input from stdin (and there's only one that does so).

gorrillamcd · 10-18-2011, 07:08 PM

Thanks for the answers guys. You're both right. The script is working as it should, but not how I wanted

When Calamaris outputs an html report, it creates a somename.html file (the "--output-file ${DATE}.html" in my script), but this file just references the other html files that actually store the report info. So to achieve what I want, I have to set --output-file to index.html and have each day's report in a directory (the --output-path option) named path/www/"Day of week".

Thank you for the corrections on syntax as well.