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Date:      Mon, 10 Mar 2003 13:03:51 +0000
From:      Matthew Seaman <m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk>
To:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: CRON and error message 'EOF in bacquote substitution'
Message-ID:  <20030310130351.GC90774@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophi>
In-Reply-To: <000701c2e703$ec3bb7d0$e203a8c0@macedon>
References:  <000701c2e703$ec3bb7d0$e203a8c0@macedon>

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On Mon, Mar 10, 2003 at 02:52:34PM +0200, Bigbrother wrote:
> 
> Hi friends,
> 
> Recently I put into my crontab the following line
> 
> 4 0 */10 * * /usr/bin/tar -cyf /backup/lab.`date "+%d%m%Y"`.tar.bz /lab
> 
> But although I can execute the command into my shell, crond refuses to
> execute and send me an email saying:
> 
> <<Syntax error: EOF in backquote substitution>>
> 
> 
> What am I doing wrong? I suspect that my problem relies on having a tcsh
> as my default shell, but crontab perhaps is running a different shell.

Crontab treats '%' characters specially --- see crontab(5).  It will
automatically replace a '%' character with a newline, as a method of
being able to include multiline shell input into the crontab file.

To get a literal '%', type '\%'.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                       26 The Paddocks
                                                      Savill Way
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey         Marlow
Tel: +44 1628 476614                                  Bucks., SL7 1TH UK

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