Crontab Basics

“Cron Tab (CRON TABle) is a very cool little thing that allows
you to execute scripts at certain times and dates without actually
having to be around to do the work. Think of it as setting an alarm
to go off at certain intervals, and every time that alarm goes off
a certain script is run on your website, for instance. Now I have
heard Cron Tab being called many things, often incorrectly. In the
circles I travel in we usually refer to it as a Cron-Job. Anyone
who has watched a few episodes of Star-Trek will tell you that
Cronos is the Klingon Homeworld, although it is actually spelled
Q’onos. Another–perhaps less geeky crowd–would tell you that
there is a branch of Quantum Physics called Quantum-ChronoDynamics,
which deals with the micro- relationships of time and space in
quantum forms. These same guys might tell you that the particle
hypothesized to be the very particle of time is called a Cronos.
Any way you see it, Cronos means time. The TAB part simply comes
from table. Hence by working with Cron Tabs we are simply writing
Time Tables? Yup! That’s about it.”

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