Python output to text file using cron-job

Question

I have a python script i want to run every 5 minutes to check for a new file on a server. I know i can do that with cron-job. But in the directory of my python script i have a folder called 'logs'. Is there a way that i can output whatever my python script returned(it returns at least 20-30 lines every time) to a text file for the every 5 minutes into the logs folder. i want to be able to just search through the files to see the output for each run. So according to my calculations, i should get about 288 log files per day.

Also another doubt that i had is that the script shows some live stuff(like a download progress bar), so would there be a problem with that?

Thanks!

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 02 '13 at 03:27

3

If you don't want to modify the script itself, you can redirect the output to a timestamped file:

./your/script.py > "your-log-file-"`date +"%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M-%S"`".log"

Which would output files of the format:

your-log-file-2013-07-01-20-22-45.log

answered Jul 02 '13 at 03:27

go-oleg

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will i be able to use this with cron-job? i know you can put the '>' to specify the location of the log, but can i use those wildcards you used in the txt doc? Thanks – Vaibhav Aggarwal Jul 02 '13 at 03:38
> and >> (the latter being append) are the standard ways of redirecting the stdout of a command to a file. Crontab simply spawns a new shell and executes the command specified, so if that command redirects stdout or stderr it'll be executed as if it was a regular shell. [Example here.](http://stackoverflow.com/a/24957849/2568279) – Agustín Lado Apr 20 '16 at 14:56

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:45

2

If you want your standart output to go to a file you can do that like this.

import sys
sys.stdout = open('file.txt', 'w')

that way when your python script prints out stuff it will go to file.txt instead of stdout.

Here is a copy paste example.

import sys
sys.stdout = open("file.txt", 'w')

for n in xrange(100):
    print n

#I bet you can guess what you're going to see in file.txt

this will print 0-99 in a text file called file.txt and nothing will show up on your console.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:45

Community

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answered Jul 02 '13 at 03:19

John

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so i only need to use that second line once? and where, at the beginning or end? And will it print all the lines the script prints? Thanks – Vaibhav Aggarwal Jul 02 '13 at 03:32
Put that second line at the very beginning before you print anything out. – John Jul 02 '13 at 03:36

Python output to text file using cron-job

2 Answers2