hiho@ll

i just wanted to add some progs to the crontab but i need this to be done automatically
is there a command i can use to add an entry for the crontab without using crontab command
because using the crontab command, u have to edit the tab manually
but as said i want it to be done by a script

and the second question: when i add a crontab entry, when is it executed by the cron daemon?
i mean, if i change the crontab, and i want to execute a command every minute
when is it executed the first time?
updates the cron deamon itself every few minutes to know that new entrys are in the crontab?

thx@ll

I don't think you can edit the crontab file (/var/spool/cron/username in Slackware) without root privileges. As you can see the crontab app is suid root, so it can modify that file.. I'm sure there are scripts that use that crontab app (or other methods) to alter the configurations. And I'm sure there is a perl module about that (if you like perl).
If you are root you could change that file manualy with every text editor, but then you'll have to restart the crond with kill -1 <pid of crond>.