Cron Expression Parser
Translate a cron expression into plain English. 'Every 5 minutes on Mondays' from '*/5 * * * 1'.
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About Cron Expression Parser
Cron expressions are powerful but cryptic — '0 12 * * 1-5' could mean anything until you're fluent. This parser converts a cron expression into a human-readable description, using the cronstrue library which handles standard 5-field cron, 6-field with seconds, and several locale extensions.
When to use it
- Sanity-checking a cron expression before deploying
- Documenting scheduled jobs with their human description
- Reading someone else's crontab quickly
- Teaching cron syntax
How it works
The cronstrue library parses the expression and emits an English sentence. Special characters (*, /, -, ,) are interpreted; named values for months and days of week are supported.
Examples
*/5 * * * 1
Every 5 minutes, only on Monday
0 12 * * 1-5
At 12:00 PM, Monday through Friday
Frequently asked questions
- Which cron format is supported?
- Standard 5-field cron (minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week), 6-field cron with seconds (Quartz style), and 7-field with year. Special strings like @daily, @weekly, @hourly are also recognized.
- What about non-standard extensions?
- Common Quartz extensions like L (last), W (weekday nearest), and # (nth occurrence) are supported. Vendor-specific extensions (Jenkins, Vixie) work for the most part but may produce slightly different phrasing.