Comment out crontab using sed command

UNIX AIX
1

I am trying to comment out the crontab entries using sed.
I want to comment it out for a particular environment say '/mypath/scripts/'.

Using the full path as pattern, it is working. but using variable it is not working. i have tried double quotes too. but no luck!

$ crontab -l

0,20,40 * * * * /mypath/scripts/script1.sh
15,35,55 * * * * /mypath/scripts/script2.sh
5,15,25,35,45,55 * * * * /somepath/somedirectory/script3.sh

$ PATTERN=/mypath/scripts

$ crontab -l > cron.backup
$ sed "/${PATTERN}/s!^!#!" cron.backup > newCron.sample

$ crontab newCron.sample

I have also tried to escape the '$' and the braces also.

$ sed "/\${PATTERN}/s!^!#!" cron.backup > newCron.sample

$ sed "/\$\{PATTERN\}/s!^!#!" cron.backup > newCron.sample

None of the above is working. but if I use the following code, its working absolutely fine

$ sed "/\/mypath\/scripts/s!^!#!" cron.backup > newCron.sample
2

I'd say it doesn't like the / chars in PATTERN. Try to escape them; execute with set -vx

3

Thanks RudiC !
I am not familiar with the use of 'set' and could not find any suitable example too. Could you please elaborate on the same?

4

You could also use either "|" or "\\" as a sed limiter,
actualy "," would be possible too - but not in this case.