cron job

[Cameron Simpson]

On 29Jul2008 22:17, Ed Kasky <ed at esson.net> wrote:
> At 10:06 PM Tuesday, 7/29/2008, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote -=>
>> On Tue, 2008-07-29 at 21:05 -0700, Nifty Fedora Mitch wrote:
>> > On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 04:29:44PM -0400, Max Pyziur wrote:
>> > The above addresses stdout as requested
>> > also consider stderr..
>> > 2       1   *   *  *    $HOME/bin/check-calendar > /dev/null 2>&1 < 
>> /dev/null &
>>
>> What's the final "&" for?
>
> From - http://www.freeos.com/guides/lsst/ch02sec20.html
>
> For background processing (With &, use to put particular command and  
> program in background)
> [linux-command]  &
>
> For example - $ ls / -R | wc -l &

And pointless in a cron job line.
Patrick knows what it does, he's wondering why. So am I.
You're aware cron runs jobs when they're due, even if other jobs are not
yet finished?
-- 
Cameron Simpson <cs at zip.com.au> DoD#743
http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/

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