date +“%Y-%m-%d” in crontab

Question

If I put the following in crontab -e:

* * * * * date +"%Y-%m-%d" > /home/apps/temp/env.txt

there is no env.txt created.

If I change the above line to:

* * * * * date > /home/apps/temp/env.txt

env.txt is created properly.

How can I format date in cron?

Answer 1

You need to escape each one of the %:

* * * * * date +"\%Y-\%m-\%d" > /home/apps/temp/env.txt

Or even better, remove the quotes and leave like this:

* * * * * date +\%Y-\%m-\%d > /home/apps/temp/env.txt