this works in my cron tab
and this does not get executed (modified slightly for posting here)i've tried using single and double quotes around it to no avail.
could someone explain why it is not taking the arguments given to it?

when i modified test.pl to have optional arguments the arguments failed to show.

note: i would greatly prefer an explanation of why the argument failed to be taken in the cron job than someone posting a fixed version that does work. i will learn much more by reading the explanation

I believe the line is executed with /bin/sh, putting it in quotes is like passing a string around. You probably want:

50 10 * * * `~/test.pl single`

Put in `command`, not 'command'. I'm not entirely sure though, but worth a shot.

No, with backquotes, it will try to execute the output of "~/test.pl single", which unlikely to be useful.

To the original poster: you *have* checked to make sure it runs
from the command line, yes? Under /bin/sh? Try

/bin/sh -c '~/test.pl single'

In the crontab itself, you do NOT want quotes around the whole thing, your first line

50 10 * * *  ~/test.pl none

should work.[/code]

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