CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashcron
netDesign8
netDesign8

Reputation: 77

env issues when running cron bash script

I have a nightly report that is executed by cron with the following lines in it:

PRINTFX="/usr/bin/printf"
<snip>
${PRINTFX} "%-11s %-11s %'d\n" ${F1} ${F2} ${F3}

Crontab entry:

[ca-adm@homwpspect01 ~]$ crontab -l
55      01      *       *       *       /usr/local/sbin/CRONSQLEvents

My Issue is that if I run this manually as root (i.e. with my login env settings), I get this [CORRECT] output:

Date        Event       Count
2013-02-19  0x00010802  516,616
2013-02-19  0x00010D66  351,840
2013-02-19  0x00010D67  351,533

When run by cron as another user, I get [InCorrect]:

Date        Event       Count
2013-02-19  0x00010802  516616
2013-02-19  0x00010D66  351840
2013-02-19  0x00010D67  351533

If it is run by cron, the comma is MISSING from the numeric output. I remember reading something about use of printf being ambiguous because there is a bash internal function, but there is also an external in /usr/bin:

[root@homwpspect01 sbin]# which printf
printf is a shell builtin
printf is /usr/bin/printf

Can someone tell me how to avoid this issue with cron versus logged in execution ? Especially given that I am specifying the /usr/bin/printf in the script anyway ?

Thanks in advance, Don

Upvotes: 4

Views: 406

Answers (2)

netDesign8
netDesign8

Reputation: 77

So to get this to work correctly, I will add this line to the script:

export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
PRINTFX="/usr/bin/printf"
<snip>
${PRINTFX} "%-11s %-11s %'d\n" ${F1} ${F2} ${F3}

Upvotes: 0

Keith Thompson
Keith Thompson

Reputation: 263257

The format of a number printed with %'d depends on the current locale, not (necessarily) on which printf command you're using.

If your script is as you've shown us, you're invoking /usr/bin/printf.

On my system:

$ echo $LANG
en_US.UTF-8
$ printf "%'d\n" 123456
123,456
$ /usr/bin/printf "%'d\n" 123456
123,456
$ LANG=C printf "%'d\n" 123456
123456
$ LANG=C /usr/bin/printf "%'d\n" 123456
123456
$

Bash's built-in printf and /usr/bin/printf (from GNU Coreutils) behave consistently.

You probably need to set $LANG in your script to get the behavior you want.

The %'d format is documented in the GNU libc manual:

'

Separate the digits into groups as specified by the locale specified for the LC_NUMERIC category; *note General Numeric::. This flag is a GNU extension.

Upvotes: 4

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