Please cna you tell me if the following command entered in error would affect the crontab file

crontab -e | more

Thanks

crontab -e is used to edit (modify) the crontab file. Piping it to more is no use. You may want to look at crontab -l. The crontab command also does error checking on the edited/modified file and will not update the actual crontab file unless the new file is error free.

Thanks blowtorch. But it was in error that I used the -e option and was worried the the command I used would affect the crontab file. The command I wanted to use was crontab -l | more . With crontab using the vi editor and then more for the display I was worried it would affect the file

Hi

1. crontab -e
This command is used ONLY for editing/adding the crontabs in vi editor.
2. crontab -l
This command just dispalys all crontabs at once, the file is not affected
3. crontab -l | more
This command display the crontabs, incase you file happen to be large,
hit the spacebar to view more.
The file again is not affected.

P.S: Make sure you have spare copy of your crontab file somewhere

Regards
Sumedha

Old admin point of vue:
using crontab -e : fine you modify etc... but many people do that without having a spare (copy somewhere), some admins when have to do strong maintenance e.g after a crash and under pression dont want things else disturbing then and simply delete the content of the cron spool.. else, if things dont work one day, how do you compare ? (noe previous copy...).
So if you are not too confident, a good way to do things is to have your cronfile somewhere where all cron users can read (so they have no excuse in overlapping schedules...) I usually put them in /sm/cron/ , suffixed by your account name e.g confile.blondie, if paranoid make a second copy ( I do...) cronfile.blondie.last, before any modification you can compare (no one else modified without you knowing of you modified without updating...) lets say you put the cronfiles in /sm/cron use vi to edit/modify
then load the new file:
you can chack your update with crontab -l | more ...
I add in comment where the file should be and its name:
All the best

Also, it seems like you are using vi on your crontab. Don't. Use crontab -l or crontab -e

I always VI my crontabs