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Accepted
aidan
Asked: 2010-08-13 02:05:47 +0800 CST

Strange problem with crontab and echo

  • 772
$ echo -e "test1\ntest2" > logfile

$ echo -e "test1\ntest2" >> logfile

$ cat logfile
test1
test2
test1
test2

$ rm logfile

$ crontab -e
* * * * * echo -e "test1\ntest2" >> logfile

$ sleep 160

$ cat logfile
-e test1
test2
-e test1
test2

Why am I getting the -e in the output? Both crontab and bash are using /bin/echo

linux ubuntu cron command-line-interface echo

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    They're probably not both using /bin/echo. The environment used by cron is probably different from your interactive environment. Specify the full path to be sure.

    • 9

  2. This is one of the reasons people recommend using printf instead of echo for portability.

    * * * * * printf "test1\ntest2\n" >> logfile

    The shell that cron uses is sh rather than Bash. On my system, sh is really Dash and its echo doesn't have -e. So -e becomes just another string to be output. Other versions of the Bourne shell or shells that provide its functionality may have -e.

    If you use echo without the full path in your crontab, you're getting the shell's builtin echo instead of /bin/echo. On the command line, if you're using Bash, then echo without the full path gives you Bash's builtin version.

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