The Five Fields of Cron
A standard cron expression consists of five space-separated fields representing the time interval of execution:
* * * * * | | | | | | | | | +----- Day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0) | | | +--------- Month (1 - 12) | | +------------- Day of month (1 - 31) | +----------------- Hour (0 - 23) +--------------------- Minute (0 - 59) ```
Special Operators
- `*` (Asterisk): Matches any value in the field (e.g., every minute).
- `,` (Comma): Separates a list of values (e.g., `1,5` in the hour field means 1:00 AM and 5:00 AM).
- `-` (Hyphen): Defines a range of values (e.g., `1-5` in the day of week field means Monday through Friday).
- `/` (Slash): Specifies increments/steps (e.g., `*/15` in the minute field means every 15 minutes).