Cron job to run 1st Saturday of each month

[nancy rippey]

Is it possible to have a cron entry to run on the 1st Saturday of each month?

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom Nancy,

cron can't do it.

Date hammer can calculate the date in a cron script.

http://www.hpux.ws/merijn/caldj.sh
http://www.hpux.ws/merijn/caldj.pl

SEP

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Not with just cron but you can have the job run every Saturday and then let it decide whether or not this is the 1st (or Nth) Saturday.

Here's one approach: Create a cron entry that will run at your chosen time every Saturday, then:

#!/usr/bin/sh

export PATH=${PATH}:/usr/local/bin
typeset -i STAT=0
if [[ $(caljd.sh -N) -eq 1 ]]
then
echo "It's the 1st Saturday; do your thing"
# execute your command and set ${STAT}
fi
exit ${STAT}

This assumes that you have installed the attached caljd.sh in /usr/local/bin. Invoke as caljd.sh -u for full usage and many examples.

[Rick Garland · Accepted solution]

The 1st Sat of each month will be a date of 1-7. If the day today is '6' (date +%U) && date is day of month is "01-07' (date +%d)

If both of these conditions are met then today is the 1st Sat of a month

[Yogeeraj_1]

hi nancy,
also consider using the following as template for your crontab:

#*******************************************************************************
# min|hour |day |month|day |script
# | |of mo| |of wk|
#----|-----|-----|-----|-----|--------------------------------------------------
#*******************************************************************************
#*******************************************************************************
# END OF TABLE day0->Sunday day6->Saturday
#*******************************************************************************


hope this helps!

kind regards
yogeeraj

[Muthukumar_5]

Use format in crontab as,

minute hour monthday month weekday command

to run on 1st saturday then,

1-7 * *
In command script>

if [[ "$(date +'%a')" != "Sat" ]]
then
exit 0
else

fi

--
Muthu

[Arturo Galbiati]

Hi nancy,

# minute hour monthday month weekday (0=Sunday) command
# 0-59 0-23 1-31 1-12 0-6
* * 1-7 * 6
This will run your script on Saturday only during days from 1 to 7 of the month.
i.e.: first Saturday of teh month
(environment: HP-UX 11i)

HTH,
Art

[nancy rippey]

Thank you all for the valuable information. I tested with many of the ways given and they seem to work. Thanks again

[Arunvijai_4]

Hi Nancy,

You can find these docs for more information,

http://docs.hp.com/en/B2355-60127/crontab.1.html
http://www.adminschoice.com/docs/crontab.htm

-Arun

[A. Clay Stephenson]

This suggested solution will certainly run the cron job on the 1st Saturday of the month; however it will also run the cron job on EVERY Saturday of the month and, in addition, will also execute on the 1st through 7th days of the month.

# minute hour monthday month weekday (0=Sunday) command
# 0-59 0-23 1-31 1-12 0-6
* * 1-7 * 6
Dates specified as both days of the month and days of the week are logical OR's not
logical AND's.

[nancy rippey]

This thread is now closed