Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!aurora!labrea!agate!eris!mwm
From: mwm@eris (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Cron
Message-ID: <6621@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 20 Jan 88 10:19:25 GMT
References: <11098@brl-adm.ARPA> <449@wa3wbu.UUCP> <1988Jan17.235014.19530@lsuc.uucp>
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: mwm@eris.UUCP (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer)
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica
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In article <1988Jan17.235014.19530@lsuc.uucp> dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) writes:
<Every cron that I have ever seen or heard of either rereads crontab
<every minute or so

Crontab? SysV doesn't have a "crontab". It has a /usr/lib/cron, which
is full of little crontab files[*]. Stat()ing them all once a minute
could get quite expensive. As a result, it doesn't do that - you need
to send it a signal to make it reread them all. That's why there's a
command to read your crontab file, or replace it. That command takes
care of sending the signal for you.

The cron I wrote for the GNU project behaves the same way.

	<mike

[*] I haven't actually used this, just read the docs. I think it was
possible to have a single crontab ala v7/bsd/others.

--
Take a magic carpet to the olden days			Mike Meyer
To a mythical land where everybody lays			mwm@berkeley.edu
Around in the clouds in a happy daze			ucbvax!mwm
In Kizmiaz ... Kizmiaz					mwm@ucbjade.BITNET