Sending cron output to a file with a timestamp in its name

Try:

0 0 * * * /some/path/to/a/file.php > $HOME/`date +\%Y\%m\%d\%H\%M\%S`-cron.log 2>&1

Play around with the date format, if you like; just be sure to escape any % like \%, as above.

I would highly recommend that you save everything into the same file, using timestamp, as explained on Abdullah Diab’s Blog.

remove

2>&1

... and run it through the timestamping script before saving it to log file.

timestamp.sh script:

#!/bin/bash
while read x; do
    echo -n `date +%d/%m/%Y\ %H:%M:%S`;
    echo -n " ";
    echo $x;
done

Remember to chmod +x timestamp.sh to make it executable.

Then edit the cron job line using crontab -e to be like this:

/path/to/my/command.sh 2>&1 | /path/to/timestap.sh >> /var/log/cron/my_log.log

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