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Date:      Thu, 27 Jun 1996 11:10:26 -0500
From:      rjk@sparcmill.grauel.com (Richard J Kuhns)
To:        "M.R.Murphy" <mrm@Mole.ORG>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: The crontab controversy
Message-ID:  <199606271610.LAA18858@sparcmill.grauel.com>
In-Reply-To: <199606271520.IAA20509@meerkat.mole.org>
References:  <199606271520.IAA20509@meerkat.mole.org>

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M. R. Murphy writes:
 > >  > Should we:
 > >  > 
 > >  > 1.  Declare the ATT method the winner.
 > >  > 2.  Declare the BSD method (the REAL original crontab) the winner.
 > >  > 3.  Make the installation program remove one or the other at install
 > >  >      (put /var/cront/tabs/root in with the same actions as /etc/crontab
 > >  >      and have the install remove one or the other)
 > >  > 4.  Ignore the problem and trap the users/admins?
 > >  > 
 > >
 > > In order of preference, 1 3 2 4.
 > >
 > > Method 1 (/var/cron/tabs/*) offers the greatest versatility and
 > > consistency; it's sole disadvantage, as far as I can see, is that it
 > > requires root to execute one additional commmand when changing the system
 > > crontab file: "crontab new_crontab".  I'd even be willing to argue that
 > > this is a Good Thing.  Furthermore, a crontab file is a crontab file is a
 > > crontab file.  This makes it easier to write a script that (syntactically)
 > > verifies crontab files before installing them.
 > 
 > Before making such a decision, it might be a good thing to
 > 
 >   1. man cron
 >   2. man 1 crontab
 >   3. man 5 crontab
 >   4. cat /etc/crontab
 > 
I've read them all.

 > and understand the reasons that cron is now the way that it is.

So what are they?  I still see NO reason for using 2 different formats by
default, and the "/var/cron/tabs" method is more versatile than the
monolithic "/etc/crontab" method.
--
Rich Kuhns			rjk@grauel.com
PO Box 6249			Tel: (317)477-6000 x319
100 Sawmill Road
Lafayette, IN  47903




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