crontab entry environment variables [PSARC/2007/503 FastTrack timeout 09/10/2007]

[Darren J Moffat]

Bill Sommerfeld wrote:
> Secondly: I think ALLOW_EXTENSIONS is not necessary.  This is another
> case where an extension gives meaning to what was formerly a syntax
> error. 
> 
> There appears to be extensive implementation experience with this sort
> of extension on other platforms.  In the absence of evidence that there
> is real crontab-manipulating code out there which will be broken by this
> extension, I don't think we need the ALLOW_EXTENSIONS knob (except
> *possibly* as a hedge to enable backport to an older release, and even
> then I'm skeptical).

I agree with this and I particularly like how your rationale makes the 
distinction between full crontab file vs single entry.

The only reason that I encouraged Chris to put in the knob was 
"standards fear fud".   I think we need Don (or someone else intimate 
with the standards that cover cron/crontab) to comment on this.   In 
particular do the standards tests actually put "garbage" in the crontab 
files and check that it fails ?

knobless is best.

-- 
Darren J Moffat