Use PHP to create, edit and delete crontab jobs?

Question

Is it possible to use PHP to create, edit and delete crontab jobs?

I know how to list the current crontab jobs of the Apache user:

$output = shell_ex         


        

Answer 1

I tried the solution below

class Crontab {

// In this class, array instead of string would be the standard input / output format.

// Legacy way to add a job:
// $output = shell_exec('(crontab -l; echo "'.$job.'") | crontab -');

static private function stringToArray($jobs = '') {
    $array = explode("\r\n", trim($jobs)); // trim() gets rid of the last \r\n
    foreach ($array as $key => $item) {
        if ($item == '') {
            unset($array[$key]);
        }
    }
    return $array;
}

static private function arrayToString($jobs = array()) {
    $string = implode("\r\n", $jobs);
    return $string;
}

static public function getJobs() {
    $output = shell_exec('crontab -l');
    return self::stringToArray($output);
}

static public function saveJobs($jobs = array()) {
    $output = shell_exec('echo "'.self::arrayToString($jobs).'" | crontab -');
    return $output; 
}

static public function doesJobExist($job = '') {
    $jobs = self::getJobs();
    if (in_array($job, $jobs)) {
        return true;
    } else {
        return false;
    }
}

static public function addJob($job = '') {
    if (self::doesJobExist($job)) {
        return false;
    } else {
        $jobs = self::getJobs();
        $jobs[] = $job;
        return self::saveJobs($jobs);
    }
}

static public function removeJob($job = '') {
    if (self::doesJobExist($job)) {
        $jobs = self::getJobs();
        unset($jobs[array_search($job, $jobs)]);
        return self::saveJobs($jobs);
    } else {
        return false;
    }
}

}

credits to : Crontab Class to Add, Edit and Remove Cron Jobs