Home / Questions / 443690
Accepted
josanangel
Asked: 2022-04-13 09:29:49 +0800 CST 2022-04-13 09:29:49 +0800 CST

Linux crontab. 'Syntax error: Unterminated quoted string' when making a backup but it's ok

  • 772

I have this in my crontab mysqldumpto make a backup of my bd:

0 5 * * mon,wed,thu,fri root mysqldump test > /var/backups/databases/test_$( date '+%F_%H:%M:%S' ).sql

And I am seeing that no backup of said DB has been made, I have gone to /var/mail/rootand I have found crontab errors that I have received as alerts, specifically:

To: root
Subject: Cron <xxxr> mysqldump   test  > /var/backups/databases/database_test_$( date '+
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-Cron-Env: xxx
X-Cron-Env: xxx
X-Cron-Env: xxx
X-Cron-Env: xxx
Message-Id: xxx
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2021 03:00:01 +0000 (UTC)

/bin/sh: 1: Syntax error: Unterminated quoted string

Syntax error: Unterminated quoted string

So, because of the error it gives me, I interpret that it doesn't finish reading the line and cuts the script when it goes, data ' +...that's why it gives me a syntax error. But of course, it doesn't make any apparent sense, does it? Why would I cut there?

In fact I have tested the script by hand and it works fine.

Update

I have these environments in the crontab:

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
linux

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    manual :

    A character %in the command, unless escaped with \, will be replaced by a newline character, and all data after the first %will be sent to the command as standard input.

    That's why it cuts the line, so you have to escape the date format:

    $( date '+\%F_\%H:\%M:\%S' )
    • 3