crontab errors

hello,

so i got this perl script...and when i try to run it via command line it works fine..yet when i put the same syntax in crontab it complains

my crontab :

0 8-17 * * 1-5 /home/obtadmin/bin/mac-address-checks.pl create `/usr/bin/date +%m%d%H%M`

and it complains that

Your "cron" job
/home/obtadmin/bin/mac-address-checks.pl create /home/obtadmin/bin/script-data/`date +

produced the following output:

Couldn't open /home/obtadmin/bin/script-data/ for write


so somehow the cron is not evaluating the `/usr/bin/date +%m%d%H%M` correctly..... what must i enclose it in to make it work..like i said, if i just type the same thing in command line then it works..

thanx

How about:

`/usr/bin/date "+%m%d%H%M"`

Personally though when I get a crontab that has a commandline that's over 1 argument long I usually put the command(s) into a script and just call the script via crontab.

Believe it or not, everything after a per cent sign is stripped from a crontab line and is fed to the command as input. I think that a backslash if front of each per cent sign will prevent this.

I agree with munkfish though, just put the line in a scipt and call that.