Cronjob What does it mean ??

Hello,

I know some site use what called Cronjob from their site cPanel , but what does it mean and what is used for ??

do you know where I can find good tutorial explain cronjob ?

thanks

 

It's used for scheduling tasks/programs (Like 'scheduled tasks' in Windows) to run at certain times etc. You can specify it to run every 6th hour, once a day, once a week, once a year if on the 3rd of july and it happens to be a friday etc.

Just google for 'crontab tutorial'

The syntax of cronjobs looks like this:
* * * * * <what to do>
1 2 3 4 5 6

1 = minute
2 = hour
3 = day
4 = month
5 = weekday
6 = what to do, for example run a program or php file. (example: 'php /home/user/generatesomething.php')

I've never used cpanel actually, I'm guessing they have it much easier, so you don't have to do it manually.

 

thank you for help
can I use cronjob to optimize mysql database on the cPanel every 8 hours so I don't have to optimize it manually ? if you have idea about that

 

cron jobs are used to do routine tasks, eg. Execute a php script every day at 2pm, instead of having to do it manually everyday.

 

Anyone ever tried using a cronjob with oscommerce to download a daily packing list of all orders?

It would save a lot of time if I was able to do this, though I suppose the coed involved would be quite complex - might have to pay someone to code it?