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From: diamant@hpfcla.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.unix
Subject: Re: Orphaned Response
Message-ID: <17000001@hpfclp.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 17-Nov-85 17:45:00 EST
Article-I.D.: hpfclp.17000001
Posted: Sun Nov 17 17:45:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 23-Nov-85 10:53:08 EST
References: <187@l5.UUCP>
Organization: 17 Nov 85 15:45:00 MST
Lines: 19

In regards to the SYS V/REL 2 crontab command:
/***** hpfclp:net.unix / kitty!larry /  6:30 pm  Nov 11, 1985*/

	My question: does anyone know why simply editing the particular crontab
file will not work, and why the crontab command MUST be used?

/* ---------- */

	The reason the crontab command must be invoked is that cron doesn't
reread the crontab file unless the crontab command is used.  Cron reads the
crontab file at system boot time (program startup time), and doesn't look at
it again unless the crontab program is invoked.  In older versions of UNIX(tm),
cron would have to check the crontab file every once in a while to make sure
it hadn't changed (which is a waste of CPU cycles).

John Diamant
Fort Collins Systems Division	UUCP:   {ihnp4,hplabs}!hpfcla!diamant
Hewlett Packard			CSNET:  hpfcla!diamant@hplabs
Fort Collins, CO		ARPA:   hpfcla!diamant%hplabs.csnet@csnet-relay