Question

I have a bash script which backups my source code on a 10 minute basis thru crontab. Script was working until the end of August. It’s not working since September 1st. This is the script:

#!/bin/sh
date=`date +%e-%m-%y`
cd /home/neky/python
tar -zcf lex.tar.gz lex/
echo $date

mv lex.tar.gz lex-$date.tar.gz
mv lex-$date.tar.gz /home/neky/Dropbox/lex/lex-$date.tar.gz

If I execute it manually, it print the current date 4-09-12, and this error mv: target ‘4-09-12.tar.gz’ is not a directory

What could be the problem?

Answer 1

Your date contains a space when the day of month is a single digit (which also explains why it only stopped working in the new month). That results in your command being split up, i.e.

# this is what it you end up with
mv lex.tar.gz lex- 4-09-12.tar.gz

Use date +%d-%m-%y instead which will give you 04-09-12 (note %d instead of %e).

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If you really want a space in the name, you’ll need to quote your variables, i.e.:

mv lex.tar.gz "lex-$date.tar.gz"
mv "lex-$date.tar.gz" /home/neky/Dropbox/lex/