Minimal crontab for fast and expressive shell scripting
Creating and managing a crontab can often be a cumbersome task. It typically involves several challenges:
- Sudo permission. In many cases, crontab modifications require elevated permissions, which can be inconvenient or even restrictied in certain environments.
- Absolute paths. Crontab demands the use of absolute paths, which makes it more cumbersome when what you want to do is just executing a simple shell script that you just wrote.
- Lack of second-precision. The smallest possible unit of traditional cron is minutes, which can be too coarse for more granular or sophisticated automation needs.
semicron is minimalistc and modern alternative to crontab, perfect for quick and dirty shell scripting.
- Relative path support. Unlike crontab,
semicronallows the use of relative paths. You can run everything in CWD right now! - Easy termination. You can simply terminate
semicronwith a normalCtrl + Ccommand, which is far intuitive, and you no longer have to worry about cron running in the background that you haven't cleared. - Second-precision:
semicronsupports optional second-precision, enabling more precise and repeatitive work. You don't need to wait almost 10 minutes to confirm cron is working any longer! - Cross platform. Yeah.
semicronruns perfectly on Windows!
Usage:
semicron [OPTIONS] cron cmd arguments...
Application Options:
-s, --shell= Shell to execute the command
Help Options:
-h, --help Show this help messagePing every 15 seconds.
$ semicron '*/15 * * * * *' ping google.com -- -c 1Show today's weather at 07:00 AM every day.
$ semicron '0 7 * * *' curl wttr.in$ semicron '* * * * * *' -s bash figlet '$(date)' -- -w 140
_____ _ ____ ____ ___ ___ ____ _ __ _____ _ _ _ ______ _____ ____ ___ ____ _____
| ___| __(_) | _ \ ___ ___ |___ \ / _ \ / _ \___ \ _/ |/ /_ _|___ /| || | | |/ / ___|_ _| |___ \ / _ \___ \|___ /
| |_ | '__| | | | | |/ _ \/ __| __) | (_) | | | | |__) (_) | '_ (_) |_ \| || |_ | ' /\___ \ | | __) | | | |__) | |_ \
| _|| | | | | |_| | __/ (__ / __/ \__, | | |_| / __/ _| | (_) | ___) |__ _| | . \ ___) || | / __/| |_| / __/ ___) |
|_| |_| |_| |____/ \___|\___| |_____| /_/ \___/_____(_)_|\___(_)____/ |_| |_|\_\____/ |_| |_____|\___/_____|____/
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| ___| __(_) | _ \ ___ ___ |___ \ / _ \ / _ \___ \ _/ |/ /_ _|___ / ___| | |/ / ___|_ _| |___ \ / _ \___ \|___ /
| |_ | '__| | | | | |/ _ \/ __| __) | (_) | | | | |__) (_) | '_ (_) |_ \___ \ | ' /\___ \ | | __) | | | |__) | |_ \
| _|| | | | | |_| | __/ (__ / __/ \__, | | |_| / __/ _| | (_) | ___) |__) | | . \ ___) || | / __/| |_| / __/ ___) |
|_| |_| |_| |____/ \___|\___| |_____| /_/ \___/_____(_)_|\___(_)____/____/ |_|\_\____/ |_| |_____|\___/_____|____/
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| ___| __(_) | _ \ ___ ___ |___ \ / _ \ / _ \___ \ _/ |/ /_ _|___ / / /_ | |/ / ___|_ _| |___ \ / _ \___ \|___ /
| |_ | '__| | | | | |/ _ \/ __| __) | (_) | | | | |__) (_) | '_ (_) |_ \| '_ \ | ' /\___ \ | | __) | | | |__) | |_ \
| _|| | | | | |_| | __/ (__ / __/ \__, | | |_| / __/ _| | (_) | ___) | (_) | | . \ ___) || | / __/| |_| / __/ ___) |
|_| |_| |_| |____/ \___|\___| |_____| /_/ \___/_____(_)_|\___(_)____/ \___/ |_|\_\____/ |_| |_____|\___/_____|____/Run git gc in current working directory every 3 hours.
$ semicron '0 */3 * * *' git gc