A bit more code

And here is the brains behind my stufftar backup (Bash) script...

# perform_backup
# $1 - stub of .tar.gz filename
# $2 - name of log file e.g. "scripts/stufftarlog.txt"
# $3 - directory to do the tarring in
# $4 onwards - files/directories to put in .tar.gz file relative to $3
function perform_backup()
{
  if [ $# -lt 4  ]
  then
    echo "Error perform_backup() insufficient no of parameters";
    return 1;
  fi;

 FILENAME_STUB=$1
 DESTINATION_FILENAME=$1`date "+_%d_%B_%Y.tar.gz"`
 LOGFILE=$2
 TAR_DIR=$3
  if [ $STUFFTAR_VERBOSE -gt 0 ]
  then
    echo $0 $1 $2 $3 $4 $5 $6 $7 $8 $9 ${10} ${11} ${12} ${13} ${14} ${15} ${16} ${17} ${18} ${19} ${20}
    echo DESTINATION_FILENAME=$DESTINATION_FILENAME e.g. Desktop_28_December_2014.tar.gz
    echo FILENAME_STUB=$FILENAME_STUB
    echo LOGFILE=$LOGFILE
    echo TAR_DIR=$TAR_DIR
  fi
  CURRENT_TIME=`date "+%H:%M:%S"`
  cd $TAR_DIR
  echo_and_log $LOGFILE $CURRENT_TIME Backing up key $TAR_DIR $4 $5 $6 $7 $8 $9 ${10} ${11} ${12} ${13} ${14} ${15} ${16} ${17} ${18} ${19} ${20}files to $DESTINATION_FILENAME

  /usr/bin/time -f "%E mins:secs " tar -czf $DESTINATION_FILENAME $4 $5 $6 $7 $8 $9 ${10} ${11} ${12} ${13} ${14} ${15} ${16} ${17} ${18} ${19} ${20}
  exit_if_failed $? "perform_backup to " $DESTINATION_FILENAME
  echo File count:-
  tar -tvf $DESTINATION_FILENAME | wc -l
  ls -lh $DESTINATION_FILENAME
  echo
  cd;
  return 0;
}