crontab update

[Bradley W. Fisher]

In article <855 at edstip.EDS.COM>, ohrnb at edstip.EDS.COM (Erik Ohrnberger) writes:
> 
> I have a question about the safest way to update the cron program's
> crontab file ..........
> ....  Is there a special procedure to correctly update the crontab file?
> 

According to Rebecca Thomas and Rik Farrow, authors of UNIX ADMINISTRATION
GUIDE FOR SYSTEM V (ISBN 0-13-942889-5), page 23 (not *exactly* verbatim
but accurate ... BTW this book has many useful tidbits in it) ....

$ crontab -l > /tmp/crontab	# this lists your crontab to a temporary file
[ edit the file /tmp/crontab ... with vi for instance]
$ crontab /tmp/crontab	# forces cron to read the new crontab file

Of course, if you are logged in as root and want to change root's crontab
file you'll see a "#" instead of "$" prompt.

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