cronjob output, what does "\r/r" mean?

[erinod]

hi all,
I'm very confused as to why I am getting this error message when I run a cronjob for a backup script I'm working on:

mkdir: cannot create directory `/home/erind/socprojects_backups/10_19_2011\r/\r': No such file or directory

The script leading up to this error is:

# ./SocProjects/cronjobs/weekly_fullbackup.sh
# Backup script for SOC project files and mysql database, to be executed weekly.
#################################
# Assign DTG and Date variables #
# to $a & $b respectively       #
#################################
a=$(date +%T-%d_%m_%Y)
b=$(date +%m_%d_%Y)
########################################
# Backup Site Directory - files and db #
########################################
### echo command states the name of the directory being made for the current backup,
### where the filesystem/code and database backup copies will go. The mkdir command
### actually creates the directory.
echo "mkdir /home/erind/socprojects_backups/".$b
mkdir /home/erind/socprojects_backups/$b/

I'm really confused because I wrote this script modeled after another backup script that does not have this problem. I don't get why the output is showing me "\r/\r"

Any help appreciated!

[Kloschüssel]

$b does probably contain a \r (alias carriage return, alias linefeed, alias newline), coming from "$(date +%m_%d_%Y)"

when you execute the date command directly, the output should be something like:

$date +%m_%d_%Y
10_19_2011
$

but you expect it to be:

$date +%m_%d_%Y
10_19_2011$

[atreyu]

Did you make that backup script in Windows, by chance? Run this to view special characters in the file:

cat -v ./SocProjects/cronjobs/weekly_fullbackup.sh

If so, you'll see ^M at the end of each line.

Try dos2unix, if that is indeed your problem.