Deployment Guide

32 Configuration Guide
• The / character is used to specify increments.
0/15 in the seconds field means the seconds 0, 15, 30, and 45.
5/15 in the seconds field means the seconds 5, 20, 35, and 50.
Specifying * before / is equivalent to specifying 0 as the value to start with.
1/3 in the day-of-month field means fire every 3 days starting on the first day of the month.
Essentially, for each field in the expression, there is a set of numbers that can be turned on or off. For seconds and
minutes, the numbers range from 0 to 59. For hours, 0 to 23, for days of the month, 0 to 31. For months, 1 to 12. The /
character simply helps you turn on every ‘nth’ value in the given set. Thus, 7/6 in the month field only turns on month 7,
it does not mean every 6th month.
• The L character is allowed for the day-of-month and day-of-week fields. This character means last, but it has different
meaning in each of the two fields.
The value L in the day-of-month field means the last day of the month (day 31 for January, day 28 for February on
non-leap years).
If used in the day-of-week field by itself, it means 7 or SAT.
If used in the day-of-week field after another value, it means the last xxx day of the month. For example, 6L means the
last Friday of the month. When using the L option, it is important not to specify lists, or ranges of values, as you will get
confusing results.
• The W character is allowed for the day-of-month field. This character is used to specify the weekday (Monday-Friday)
nearest the given day. For example, if you were to specify 15W as the value for the day-of-month field, it means the
nearest weekday to the 15th of the month. So if the 15th is a Saturday, the trigger will fire on Friday the 14th. If the 15th
is a Sunday, the trigger will fire on Monday the 16th. If the 15th is a Tuesday, the trigger will fire on Tuesday the 15th.
However, if you specify 1W as the value for day-of-month, and the 1st is a Saturday, the trigger will fire on Monday the
3rd, as it will not ‘jump’ over the boundary of a month's days. The W character can only be specified when the
day-of-month is a single day, not a range or list of days.
The L and W characters can also be combined for the day-of-month expression to yield LW, which means the last
weekday of the month.
• The # character is allowed for the day-of-week field. This character is used to specify the ‘nth’ xxx day of the month. For
example, the value of 6#3 in the day-of-week field means the third Friday of the month (day 6 = Friday and #3 = the
3rd one in the month).
Other examples: 
2#1 = the first Monday of the month 
4#5 = the fifth Wednesday of the month.
Note that if you specify #5 and there is not 5 of the given day-of-week in the month, then no firing will occur that
month.
• The C character is allowed for calendar. Using this character means that values are calculated against the associated
calendar, if any. If no calendar is associated, then it is equivalent to having an all-inclusive calendar. A value of 5C in the
day-of-month field means the first day included by the calendar on or after the 5th. A value of 1C in the day-of-week
field means the first day included by the calendar on or after Sunday.
NOTE: Support for specifying both a day-of-week and a day-of-month value is not complete. Use the ? character in one of these fields.
Support for the features described for the C character is not complete. The legal characters and the names of months and days of the
week are not case sensitive. MON is the same as mon. Pay close attention to the effects of ? and * in the day-of-week and
day-of-month fields.

Be careful when setting fire times between midnight and 1:00 AM. Daylight savings time can cause a skip (or a repeat) depending on
whether the time moves back or jumps forward.