UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

In cron tab, while scheduling any commands to be run in particular time, is there any level of validation being performed to identify whether the command to be executed is perfectly valid. But AFAIK, it's not being reported even if you schedule a non existing command .say

Code:

tea abc

, Where tea ia a non existing command. If you try to schedule the above, it's being scheduled. What i expect is it should report immediately that its not a valid command,
Actually is it a drawback of cron?

Thanks

When you install a cron table, the table itself is validated (the correct number of fields in the time specification etc.), but there is no validation of the command, parameters or anything else on the command line. It is well beyond the scope of cron to try to enforce command syntax or that a command is valid.

Is this a limitation of cron? I'd have to say no. The burden of getting entries in the cron table correct is on the user.

Is there any Way to validate the command entered in cron but without executing them actually ?
Thanks

No real way to validate the command itself.
We sometimes do a basic check which means that we can suspend a process at will without changing the crontab.

Code:

* * * * * [ -x /path/scriptname ] && /path/scriptname

We also run a script daily to check the cron log for failed crons.

In the end there is no substitute for pre-production testing.