crontab: using ${USER}

Question

I am writing some scripts that uses ${USER} to point to subsequent scripts. But when I run it from crontab, it errors out and the files are not found. I understand why.

I intend to share this with my colleagues and each time the colleague has to manually change the first line to his own username. How can I minimize this issue (not have a manual way to change that one line)?

Does this answer your question? [Why is my crontab not working, and how can I troubleshoot it?](https://serverfault.com/questions/449651/why-is-my-crontab-not-working-and-how-can-i-troubleshoot-it) — Gerald Schneider, Sep 05 '21 at 07:48

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 05 '21 at 11:02

2

It's a typo. You should use $USER, not ${USER}.

Cron parses these lines itself and does only simple variable substitution; it is not a shell.

answered Sep 05 '21 at 11:02

Michael Hampton

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crontab: using ${USER}

1 Answers1