crontab entry environment variables [PSARC/2007/503 FastTrack timeo

[John Plocher]

How about changing the spec to avoid this problem all together:

    There is a knob that controls this behavior.  The knob is
    a special comment at the beginning of the crontab file itself:

       #pragma envvariables={disallowed|singleton|shared}

    With the default setting of "disallowed", it is a syntax error
    for there to be lines of the form "^name=value$" in the crontab
    file.

    The user can place an entry in the crontab of either
       #pragma envvariables=singleton
    or
       #pragma envvariables=shared

    In either of these cases, ...include current spec...

    With the "singleton" setting, a cron/env variable setting ONLY
    effects the cron job entry immediately following the settings;
    all such settings/values are dropped and not used for cronjob
    entries that follow it in the file.

    With the "shared" setting, the cron/env variables and their values are
    remembered and passed on to all subsequent cronjob invocations
    found in the file.

    -John


Bill Sommerfeld wrote:
> On Mon, 2007-09-10 at 17:55 -0700, Don Cragun wrote:
>>  1.  There is nothing in cron.1m nor in crontab.1 warning users that
>>      they should not use the HOME, SHELL, or TZ variables in crontab
>>      files that contain entries installed by more than one user or
>>      application.
> 
> I don't believe it's appropriate to have warnings against perfectly
> reasonable usage of the feature.  
> 
> What we need is a clear warning that the variable settings affect all
> successive entries and that administrators need to be on the lookout
> for unexpected side-effects.
> 
> 						- Bill
> 
> 
> 
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