How to run a shell script with export command in crontab

Question

I have a shell script that exports values of variables when executed. The same values will be used in another script.
How to run this script(test.sh) in cron.

#!/bin/sh
export I="10"
echo $I

I will be using root access for cron. I tried this command :

*/5 * * * * /home/ubuntu/backup/.test.sh

I checked with environment variables, nothing is updated.

Answer 1

Environment variables can only be passed down between a process and a direct process child. It cannot change or export environment variables to different process trees. Further, the exported variable is only available to process again that are direct descendents of the current process, NOT at the same level as the export is done.

Answer 2

If there are 2 scripts in picture, then the variable exported in the first one would be visible to the next one. So, if you have a cron entry like

*/5 * * * * ( test1.sh; test2.sh ) > log.txt

And test1.sh as

#!/bin/sh
export I="10"
echo $

Then $I would be visible in test2.sh.

Answer 3

In fact variables aren't shared across scripts in cron. Even if you define an environment variable like it says in the manpage if you have a script that changes that variable it won't really change for the second script. However, you can use a temporary file (you can even create it in memory if you don't want to rewrite a file on disk) to use between scripts.

For examle:

10 * * * * /path/to/script1.sh
20 * * * * /path/to/script2.sh

Contents of script1.sh:

#!/bin/bash
echo "VAR1='VALUE1'" > /dev/shm/cronsharedfile

Contents of script2.sh:

#!/bin/bash
source /dev/shm/cronsharedfile
do_something_with $VAR1

In this case the second script will have the correct value assigned by script1.sh. I used a file kept in shared memory (/dev/shm/cronsharedfile) but you can create a file on disk (/path/to/whateverfile) .