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From: urban@cbnewsl.att.com (john.urban)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.programmer
Subject: Re: differances between at and crontab
Keywords: at cron crontab
Message-ID: <1991May30.171249.23376@cbnewsl.att.com>
Date: 30 May 91 17:12:49 GMT
References: <85@talgras.UUCP>
Distribution: usa
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 23

In article <85@talgras.UUCP> david@talgras.UUCP (David Hoopes) writes:
>Help!
>
>    Does anyone have any idea why a program that works fine when executed
>via a crontab entry would always go off to la la land when it is executed 
>via an at command?  My program seems to be running (maybe in some kind of
>a loop) but it is not doing anything.
>
>    I have seen this on SCO Xenix 2.3.2 and SCO Unix.  It is really hard
>to debug a problem that only appears when the program is run from an at
>command.  Any sudgestions or ideas would be a great help.
>

at(1)/batch(1) commands inherit the users environment when they are set up,
where as cron jobs don't.

Thus if you're at shell script does an env and your cron job does an env you'll
see very different output.  Purhaps your application is breaking due to:
	PATH, ulimit, or Current Working directory?

Sincerely,

John Ben Urban