[HN Gopher] The quick and simple editor for cron schedule expres...
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       The quick and simple editor for cron schedule expressions
        
       Author : mooreds
       Score  : 89 points
       Date   : 2021-08-30 19:53 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (crontab.guru)
 (TXT) w3m dump (crontab.guru)
        
       | austinhutch wrote:
       | In the world of cron tools I particularly like
       | https://github.com/alseambusher/crontab-ui for a simple GUI to
       | manage my crons - would be interested to hear if there are other
       | handy packages in the space to check out
        
       | taytus wrote:
       | I'm all in for reposting content more than once, but this is
       | easily posted more than once at month
        
         | otar wrote:
         | It is scheduled in Crontab.
        
           | pkulak wrote:
           | If they used Systemd, we could actually check the logs for
           | when it ran last.
        
         | blhack wrote:
         | This is the first time I remember seeing it.
        
           | hk__2 wrote:
           | It's the 10th time in 5 years it's posted. Last time was less
           | than two months ago:
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27760822
           | 
           | So yes it's posted often, but not as often as "more than once
           | at month".
        
         | scubbo wrote:
         | I've checked HN at least once a business day for the last
         | several years, and this is the first time I've seen it.
         | Admittedly I don't click every single link every time - but,
         | someone further down this comment thread suggests you are
         | probably exaggerating.
        
       | MawKKe wrote:
       | Related note: with systemd you are probably better off using its
       | OnCalendar facilities. There is even a tool called 'systemd-
       | analyze', which can be used for verifying the correctness of your
       | OnCalendar timespec:                   $ systemd-analyze calendar
       | "*:11/5" --iterations 3           Original form: *:11/5
       | Normalized form: *-*-* *:11/5:00                          Next
       | elapse: Mon 2021-08-30 23:21:00 EEST                (in UTC): Mon
       | 2021-08-30 20:21:00 UTC                 From now: 47s left
       | Iter. #2: Mon 2021-08-30 23:26:00 EEST                (in UTC):
       | Mon 2021-08-30 20:26:00 UTC                 From now: 5min left
       | Iter. #3: Mon 2021-08-30 23:31:00 EEST                (in UTC):
       | Mon 2021-08-30 20:31:00 UTC                 From now: 10min left
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | pnelson wrote:
       | I wrote a temporal expression package
       | https://github.com/pnelson/te to escape cron for background
       | workers in greenfield work. I started writing an English language
       | expression parser for user facing work and it functions a little
       | like the reverse of the posted website, though it may be a bit
       | more limited than using the package directly at present.
        
       | kd913 wrote:
       | Why would you bother with this when you have systemd-timers with
       | times in English?
       | 
       | https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Systemd/Timers
        
         | Aeolun wrote:
         | > Timers are systemd unit files whose name ends in .timer that
         | control .service files or events.
         | 
         | Well, for one thing, here are 4 completely new concepts that I
         | don't particularly want to bother with.
         | 
         | I just want to run a command every minute. I don't want to
         | learn about unit, timer or event files and the differences
         | between them.
        
         | 0xb0565e487 wrote:
         | I have 0 knowledge of systemd-timers. Is it fully interoperable
         | with cron and available on every system that has cron?
         | 
         | If not, I think your comment is pretty irrelevant since there
         | are still scenarios where you'd need to use cron.
        
           | kd913 wrote:
           | It's on every system that has systemd which is basically on
           | every commercial production Linux system.
           | 
           | I can use them as a user and non-root, I get to use
           | journalctl and systemd status to check if it ran. The timers
           | run independently of others and in English.
           | 
           | If you are using Devuan or something weird like that than
           | sure, but nearly every other way I find systemd-timers better
           | especially for debugability.
        
             | macintux wrote:
             | There's a _vast_ world outside commercial Linux systems.
             | BSD, macOS, Solaris (I assume Solaris still exists), etc.
             | 
             | And Debian isn't exactly "weird".
        
         | encoderer wrote:
         | Cron expressions are used _everywhere_.
        
       | stefansundin wrote:
       | I would love if this could also convert between timezones. My
       | servers use UTC, so it would be nice if it could print the
       | converted time as well.
        
       | Covzire wrote:
       | Would be great if Windows Task Scheduler supported the Crontab
       | format.
        
       | roland35 wrote:
       | Some cron-like libraries, like Quartz Job Scheduler, actually
       | have a seconds number first! That bit me once when I was trying
       | to schedule something to occur every 5 minutes, and ended up
       | running it every five seconds...
        
         | Aeolun wrote:
         | Same for AWS Eventbridge. I was really confused when it kept
         | telling me my cron expression was wrong.
        
       | encoderer wrote:
       | Crontab.guru was built 5 years ago by an extremely talented
       | developer and entrepreneur, Christian Pekeler.
       | 
       | My friend and I have built an indie hacker software business,
       | Cronitor, and we've been happy to give it a good home for the
       | last three years. It's incredibly rewarding to deliver something
       | that millions of people find useful. Cronitor pays the bills but
       | if I want a pick-me-up, I search crontab.guru tweets and back
       | links and it always delights me.
        
       | leesalminen wrote:
       | Cool seeing this on HN (again?). I've been using it for years and
       | the domain is now hard coded in my brain. I don't even bother
       | writing cron expressions anymore. Thanks to the developer for
       | providing this!
        
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       (page generated 2021-08-30 23:00 UTC)