Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.bugs.sys5
Subject: Re: Crontab
Keywords: crontab bugs ncr
Message-ID: <2271@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 22 Jul 89 20:22:38 GMT
References: <138@tcnz2.tcnz.co.nz> <139@tcnz2.tcnz.co.nz>
Reply-To: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 19

>In NCR Tower Unix, release 20100, if I create a crontab format file as
>root then do
>crontab filename
>it wipes what is currently in the crontab for root and replaces it with
>the new entries. It does not append it, as the manual implies.

Unless somebody at NCR decided to modify "crontab" but didn't get it
right, it's the manual that's incorrect; in vanilla S5 from AT&T,
"crontab" is intended to replace, not append to, the existing "crontab"
file, and that's what it does.  (If you want to append, then as long as
you don't have multiple writers, you can obviously arrange to do that by
using "crontab -l" to copy the file, appending to the copy, and using
"crontab" to write it out.)

(If somebody at NCR *did* decide to do that, they should have thought
twice about making "crontab" incompatible - if it appends, is the only
way then to delete a "crontab" entry to nuke my entire "crontab" file
with "crontab -r" and then to stuff the new file in?  I suspect, though,
that it's purely a documentation screwup.)