The scheduling expression is a string comprised of 6 fields separated by white space, also called a ‘cron’ expression. Fields can contain any of the allowed values, along with various combinations of the allowed special characters for that field. The fields are as follows:
| Field | Allowed values | Allowed characters | Mandatory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seconds | 0-59 | , – * / | Yes |
| Minutes | 0-59 | , – * / | Yes |
| Hours | 0-23 | , – * / | Yes |
| Day of month | 1-31 | , – * ? / L W | Yes |
| Month | 1-12 or JAN-DEC | , – * / | Yes |
| Day of week | 1-7 or SUN-SAT | , – * ? / L # | Yes |
On the internet you can find a large number of sites to generate or validate the cron schedule expression. When using one of those pages, make sure it’s using the format which includes the seconds field. A large number of the pages do not include the seconds field and you will end up with an incorrect format. One example of such format generator or validator you can find here: https://www.freeformatter.com/cron-expression-generator-quartz.html
Special characters
- * (asterisk): Used to select all values within a field. For example, “*” in the minute field means “every minute”.
- ? (question mark): Useful when you need to specify something in one of the two fields in which the characteris allowed, but not the other. For example, if I want my trigger to fire on a particular day of the month (say, the10th), but don’t care what day of the week that happens to be, I would put “10” in the day-of-month field, and“?” in the day-of-week field. See the examples below for clarification.
- – (dash): Used to specify ranges. For example, “10-12” in the hour field means “the hours 10, 11 and 12”.
- , (comma): Used to specify additional values. For example, “MON,WED,FRI” in the day-of-week field means“the days Monday, Wednesday and Friday”.
- / (slash): Used to specify increments. For example, “0/15” in the seconds field means “the seconds 0, 15, 30,and 45”. And “5/15” in the seconds field means “the seconds 5, 20, 35, and 50”.
- L: Has a different meaning in each of the two fields in which it is allowed. For example, 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. Infused in the day-of-week field by itself, it simply means “7” or “SAT”. But 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”. You can also specify an offset from the last day of the month, such as “L-3” which would mean the third-to-last day of the calendar month. When using the ‘L’ option, it is important not to specify lists, or ranges of values, as you’ll get confusing/unexpected results.
- W: Used to specify the weekday (Monday-Friday) nearest the given day. As an example, if you were to specify“15W” as the value for the day-of-month field, the meaning is: “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, then it 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.
- # (hash): 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 and “4#5” = the fifth Wednesday of the month. Note that if you specify “#5” and there are not 5 of the given day-of-week in the month, then no firing will occur that month.
The legal characters and the names of months and days of the week are not case sensitive. MON is the same as mon.
The “L” and “W” characters can also be combined in the day-of-month field to yield “LW”, which translates to “lastweekday of the month”.
Examples
| Expression | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 0 0 12 * * ? | Fire at 12pm (noon) every day. |
| 0 15 10 * * ? | Fire at 10:15am every day. |
| 0 0/1 14 * * ? | Fire every minute starting at 2pm and ending at 2:59pm, every day. |
| 0 0/5 14 * * ? | Fire every 5 minutes starting at 2pm and ending at 2:55pm, every day. |
| 0 0/5 14,18 * * ? | Fire every 5 minutes starting at 2pm and ending at 2:55pm, AND fire every 5 minutesstarting at 6pm and ending at 6:55pm, every day. |
| 0 0-5 14 * * ? | Fire every minute starting at 2pm and ending at 2:05pm, every day. |
| 0 10,44 14 * 3 WED | Fire at 2:10pm and at 2:44pm every Wednesday in the month of March. |
| 0 15 10 * * MON-FRI | Fire at 10:15am every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. |
| 0 15 10 15 * ? | Fire at 10:15am on the 15th day of every month. |
| 0 15 10 L * ? | Fire at 10:15am on the last day of every month. |
| 0 15 10 L-2 * ? | Fire at 10:15am on the 2nd-to-last last day of every month. |
| 0 15 10 * * 6L | Fire at 10:15am on the last Friday of every month. |
| 0 15 10 * * 6#3 | Fire at 10:15am on the third Friday of every month. |
| 0 0 12 1/5 * ? | Fire at 12pm (noon) every 5 days every month, starting on the first day of the month. |
| 0 11 11 11 11 ? | Fire every November 11th at 11:11am. |