Simulate CRON job

UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users
1

Does anyone know how I can simulate a cron job execution via UNIX scripting or is there a command/tool that simulate this?

I have a file I called "appSchedule.txt", it contains below lines:

00 03 * * 1-6   RED  start
00 06 * * 0     RED  start
00 21 * * *     RED stop

00 03 * * 1-6   BLUE  start
00 06 * * 0     BLUE  start
00 21 * * *     BLUE  stop

If you noticed, it like a cron entries. What I need is for my script to output only (when I execute the script at any time/date) the the color that is scheduled to run based on the schedule given for it in the appSchedule.txt file. Just like what cron does, it executes only the lines that matches the schedule on it versus the current system time/date. Can anyone help me with the scripting for that?

2

IMHO a total waste of time writing such an application in Shell. Such a program should be a daemon (like cron).
There are many commercial or shareware job scheduler suites available but omitting to mention anything about your computer does limit the reply options to none.