How can I add a timestamp to the end of a cron job's output file name?

Question

I want to track each crontab output to separated file. Normally, I use this as crontab entry:

1  *    * * *   root    php /mix/dostuff.php > /tmp/dostuff.txt

Now, I want to make it to write instead of /tmp/dostuff.txt, to /tmp/dostuff-YYYY-MM-DD-HH-II-SS.txt

I could get the date part, using this:

TIMESTAMP=`date +%Y-%m-%H\ %k:%M:%S`

Now, how do I stick this TIMESTAMP into output file?

Answer 1

crontabs are run in a different environment than the default shell, so you can use a small shell script under your home directory with something like this in it (we'll name it script.sh):

#!/bin/bash
php /mix/dostuff.php > /tmp/dostuff-`date +%Y-%m-%H\ %k:%M:%S`.txt
exit

then change this scripts permissions to ensure it is executable, 755 should be fine. Then in your crontab:

1  *    * * *   root    /home/yourusername/script.sh

Answer 2

1  *    * * *   root    php /mix/dostuff.php > "/tmp/dostuff-`date +\%Y-\%m-\%H\ \%k:\%M:\%S`.txt"

Simple as that.