Ubuntu – How to append text to file every morning

bashcron-jobs

I would like to append current date to text file every morning at 7am. if the computer is turned off I would like it to be executed after its turned on.

Best Answer

Write

#!/bin/bash
date +%Y-%m-%d >> /path/to/file

Save that in a file under /etc/cron.daily/ and make it executable. It's important that the file does not have an extension.

The files in /etc/cron.daily/ are run daily by anacron in the morning (not exactly 7am, but around then) or during boot if it hasn't already been run that day.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Add a string to a text file from terminal

find and sed are your weapons of choice:

find /mydat/ -exec sed '1i 50' {} \;

That will stick 50 followed by a new line on the beginning of the file.

Alternatively if you don't need recursion or complex selectors for find you can drop find completely:

sed '1i 50' *

Ubuntu – How to create daily job without write access to /etc

Unless you're actively blocked from doing cron jobs (i.e., not on /etc/cron.allow or on /etc/cron.deny), then you should be able to run your own cron jobs.

Run crontab -e to open the cron job editor. If it's your first time you'll be asked to select a command line editor. You should probably choose nano unless you're familiar with one of the other choices.

Cron entries have the format

m h d mon wkday command

So putting in the entry

00 04 * * * bash script.sh

will execute your script at 4:00 am every day.

Save the file and cron will automatically implement it if there are not syntax errors.

See here for more information about cron.

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Ubuntu – Add a string to a text file from terminal

Ubuntu – How to create daily job without write access to /etc

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