Crontab command to delete itself

David Carr

Tutorials Development

Table of Contents

I was asked today can you run a cronjob only once. My initial answer was no you cannot as the least you can run a cronjob at is yearly. 

But using cron commands you can delete a cron after it's been executed, this way the cronjob runs and then deletes itself causing it to only run once, perfect!

 

Let's say I want to call a script:

somescript.sh

 

Now if I want this command to be deleted as soon as its finished:

First, the command to run, like above. 

Then use crontab -l to open the crontab.

grep -v to search the file ie look for the command. 

Find it with | crontab - to close it out.

 

Putting it all together:

somescript.sh; crontab -l | grep -v 'somescript.sh' | crontab -

 

Fathom Analytics $10 discount on your first invoice using this link

David Carr - Laravel Developer

Hi, I’m David Carr

A Senior Developer at Vivedia
I love to use the TALL stack (Tailwind CSS, Alpine.js, Laravel, and Laravel Livewire)

I enjoy writing tutorials and working on Open Source packages.

I also write books. I'm writing a new book Laravel Testing Cookbook, This book focuses on testing coving both PestPHP and PHPUnit.

Sponsor me on GitHub

Subscribe to my newsletter

Subscribe and get my books and product announcements.

Laravel Testing Cookbook

Help support the blog so that I can continue creating new content!

Fathom Analytics $10 discount on your first invoice using this link

Subscribe to my newsletter

Subscribe and get my books and product announcements.

© 2006 - 2023 DC Blog. All code MIT license. All rights reserved.