Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!sdd.hp.com!hplabs!hpcc05!hpcc01!okamoto
From: okamoto@hpcc01.HP.COM (Jeff Okamoto)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: Questions about exec and scripts called from cron
Message-ID: <1180004@hpcc01.HP.COM>
Date: 2 Oct 90 18:05:47 GMT
References: <1180002@hpcc01.HP.COM>
Organization: HP Corp Computing & Services
Lines: 35

lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall) says:

> Cron could conceivably be feeding the text above to /bin/sh through
> stdin, in which case $0 isn't going to be meaningful, and you'd
> probably try to execute the first argument of $*.

I suspect this is exactly what is happening.  Perhaps cron checks the
file type and only force-feeds through sh if it isn't a legitimate
executable?

> If the arguments you're passing contain any whitespace, you should
> instead use
> 	eval 'exec /usr/local/bin/perl -S $0 "${1+$@}"'
> 		if $running_under_some_shell;

Fortunately, my arguments are vanilla, but I'll remember this. 
Perhaps this should become the new standard for non-#! machines?

As for the original problem, I've tried all the following cron
entries and not only do they not work correctly, but they all give
me the same error message from cron:

	40 10 * * * * /usr/staff/bin/identck.pl
	40 10 * * * * /usr/local/bin/perl /usr/staff/bin/identck.pl
	40 10 * * * * /usr/local/bin/perl < /usr/staff/bin/identck.pl

I've also tried removing the eval/exec (since my machine does
understand #!) and that still doesn't work....
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