Myrddin's mushcron, v1.0.0

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mushcron is a self-triggering bit of soft code that is used to execute other pieces of mush soft code at precisely scheduled intervals. Once installed, it only requires the user to @trigger the 'cron' attribute on the mushcron object the first time. After that, the object runs itself. It has an @startup attribute that insures mushcron will always run, even after the game is shutdown or restarted.

Once a minute, mushcron searches itself for attributes starting with the pattern CRON_TIME_.
CRON_TIME attributes contain a series of fields, each seperated by a |. Each field represents a certain category of time (month, date, hour, etc). For each CRON_TIME attribute, mushcron determines if the current time matches the rules set up in the time fields. If it matches, it then @triggers a likely named CRON_JOB attribute on itself (ie. if CRON_TIME_FOOBAR matches the current time, then mushcron will @trigger CRON_JOB_FOOBAR).

The order of the fields:

          [month]|[date]|[day of week]|[hour]|[minute]|[args]

Blank fields mean that any value will match the field. Matching is case sensitive. Note that the very last field (the field after the final | ) is for any arguments you wish to pass to the CRON_JOB attribute. Arguments will be passed as %0. Also note that mushcron will look for a CRON_JOB attribute name that ends with the third 'word' of the CRON_TIME attribute (words delimited by _'s). The significance of that particular behaviour will be obvious in the examples.

One final note. mushcron expects time() to return the system time in this format:

          Sun Jan 11 20:19:57 1998

Examples

CRON_TIME_FOO: ||Sun|03|01|
CRON_JOB_FOO: @pemit #2=Foo.

Every sunday, at 3:01am, #2 will be pemit'ed 'Foo.'

CRON_TIME_FOO: ||Sun Wed|03|01|Bar.
CRON_JOB_FOO: @pemit #2=%0

Every sunday and wednesday at 3:01am, #2 will be pemit'ed 'Bar.'

CRON_TIME_FOO_1: ||Sun|03|01|
CRON_TIME_FOO_2: ||Wed|20|00|
CRON_JOB_FOO: @pemit #2=Foo.

Every sunday at 3:01am, and every Wednesday at 8:00pm, #2 will be pemit'ed 'Foo.' This example takes advantage of the fact that mushcron looks only at the third word (delimited by '_') to determine the CRON_JOB attribute to run.

CRON_TIME_FOO: Jul|15|Sat Sun|00|01
CRON_JOB_FOO: @pemit #2=Hey, your birthday is on a weekend!

On a July 15th that happens to be a saturday or a sunday, #2 will be pemit'ed the above message at one minute after midnight.

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