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I just so happened to use this page today and have used it many times in the past. It's very useful for just double-checking my syntax. It's not like cron has a

I just so happened to use this page today and have used it many times in the past. It's very useful for just double-checking my syntax. It's not like cron has a complicated syntax but for some reason I can't ever seem to commit it to memory, especially for the slightly trickier things like doing something every 15 minutes on the second Saturday of every month. Part of my problem with committing the syntax to memory likely stems from the fact that I've always had pages like this one to fall back on.

ramraj07 7y ago
Less rote stuff to commit to memory all the better
chousuke 7y ago
I think it's fine not to remember things like this; it's what man and tools like this are for. Not having memorized cron syntax likely just means you don't work with it frequently enough for your brain to deem it worth the effort.
sshagent 7y ago
I have things like that too. There is a lot of stuff i'd usually just commit to memory but now i seem to just recall I've got it bookmarked or of course have commited to memory the search phrase to find it. I'm not sure if thats a step back in personal memory management, or just being more efficient with it.
raxxorrax 7y ago
True. I seldom use cron in this day, but there are so many good scheduler libraries that use its syntax. Doing something on every friday the 13th in the summer months is hard to program and test. The textual representation is the best way to verify the syntax.
ben509 7y ago
I can't recall it either; and at 5 fields it's a case study of the problem of positional syntax. Even if we're a minority, we're a significant minority who find we have to check the man page to either read or write, thus defeating the savings from brevity.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
plmu 7y ago
man crontab.5 is a good reminder, and faster than a web tool. In fact the "EXAMPLE CRON FILE" subsection tells enough, 15 lines including comments.
panpanna 7y ago
You can have comments in the cron file. On debian based systems at least they use this to add an explanation and maybe dome examples. Never needed to check man pages since they started doing this.

ramraj07 7y ago

Less rote stuff to commit to memory all the better

chousuke 7y ago

I think it's fine not to remember things like this; it's what man and tools like this are for. Not having memorized cron syntax likely just means you don't work with it frequently enough for your brain to deem it worth the effort.

sshagent 7y ago

I have things like that too. There is a lot of stuff i'd usually just commit to memory but now i seem to just recall I've got it bookmarked or of course have commited to memory the search phrase to find it. I'm not sure if thats a step back in personal memory management, or just being more efficient with it.

raxxorrax 7y ago

True. I seldom use cron in this day, but there are so many good scheduler libraries that use its syntax. Doing something on every friday the 13th in the summer months is hard to program and test. The textual representation is the best way to verify the syntax.

ben509 7y ago

I can't recall it either; and at 5 fields it's a case study of the problem of positional syntax. Even if we're a minority, we're a significant minority who find we have to check the man page to either read or write, thus defeating the savings from brevity.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

plmu 7y ago

man crontab.5 is a good reminder, and faster than a web tool. In fact the "EXAMPLE CRON FILE" subsection tells enough, 15 lines including comments.

panpanna 7y ago

You can have comments in the cron file. On debian based systems at least they use this to add an explanation and maybe dome examples. Never needed to check man pages since they started doing this.