cronparse 0.1.1

Parse and calculate different times related to Unix cron expressions

cronparse

Parse and calculate different times related to Unix cron expressions

Parse Unix cron expressions and calculate things like:

• whether the expression is valid, as a bool
• the next time the expression will run, as a DateTime
• the last time the expression would have run, as a DateTime
• the duration until the next time the expression will run, as a Duration
• the duration since the last time the expression would have run, as a negative Duration

Usage

void main() {
    // validate a cron expression
    final valid = isValid("54 2-3,4-9 */3 FEB MON-FRI");
    print(valid); // true

    // calculate times based on a cron expression
    final time = DateTime.parse("2019-11-23 16:00:00");

    var cron = Cron("0 22 * * *");
    print(cron.nextRelativeTo(time)); // "2019-11-23 22:00:00.000"
    print(cron.untilNextRelativeTo(time) == Duration(hours: 6)); // true

    cron = Cron("*/15 * * * *");
    print(cron.previousRelativeTo(time)); // "2019-11-23 15:45:00.000"
    print(cron.sincePreviousRelativeTo(time) == Duration(minutes: -15)); // true
}

Cron expression matching strategy

High-level explanation on matching

• if the expression is a predefined nickname, translate it to the relevant actual expression. note: this library does not parse the @reboot nickname.
• tokenize the expression to each part (minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week)
• test each of these tokens to match
  • token values can be in a few forms:
    • an asterisk (*): this always matches
    • an asterisk with skips (*/15): iterate through the valid range for the field, incrementing by the skip. if any of these match, the expression matches.
    • exact value (48, feb, WED): match these exactly
    • range of values without skips (5-9): iterate through the range, starting at the lower bound and ending at the higher bound, incrementing by 1. if any of these match, the value matches
    • range of values with skip (20-30/2): iterate through the range, starting at the lower bound and ending at the higher bound, incrementing by the skip value. if any of these match, the value matches.
    • set of values or ranges (1,2,3, 5-10,45-50): test each value in the set using the above strategy. if any of the member values match, the value matches.
• iff all tokens match, the expression matches

@reboot

This library is focused on temporal calculation for cron expressions. The @reboot nickname is shorthand for "exactly once after reboot." Since the @reboot nickname is not a temporal representation, it is not handled by this library.

Links

• cron man page
• A cron-like job scheduler for Dart
• A Node.js library with similar functionality