Scheduling Script (date/time) Help Please

[Exie]

Hi,

We have a batch queue processing system where we can submit jobs from the command line.

In my script, I want to schedule a job to run 1Hr from the current time. The syntax for our queue system is:
[blue]<queue master binary> -start dd/mm/yyyy.hh:mm[/blue]

I know I can use:
[blue]CURDATE=`date "+%d/%m/%Y.%X"`[/blue]

to give me the current date/time in the right format, but how can I increment it by 1 hr ?

I thought about using something like:
[blue]CURHOUR=`date "+%d/%m/%Y.%X" | cut -c 12-13`
NEW=`expr $CURHOUR + 1`[/blue]

But this wont account for things rolling past midnight (23:30 +1 = 24:30 ... invalid!).

 

[PHV]

man at (the now + syntax)

Hope This Helps, PH.
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884 or FAQ222-2244

 

[Exie]

Thanks PHV,

Although I'm not using AT (our Unix admins have disabled it). Our batch processing system is called BQ+, unfortunately, I dont think it supports that syntax.

 

[PHV]

Try to play with the TZ variable when grabing the current date.

Hope This Helps, PH.
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884 or FAQ222-2244

 

[xmb]

If you have some systematic script that's running all the time executing jobs so not using at(1), you could have a small account(sleep time, job, params) setting sleeping time like '1h', which like could be gotten as '+1h' or '-start 1h' arg, or differential extracted from a date.

account() { local sleep=$1 prog=$2; shift 2
  #sleep=`expr $sleep + 1`
  echo "waiting $sleep to start '$prog $@'"; sleep $sleep
  if [ -z "$1" ]; then
    $prog
  else
    $prog "$@"
  fi
}

dsdiff() { local new=$1 src=$2 num; [ -z "$src" ] && src=$(date +%s)
  num=$(expr $new - $src)
  (( num < 0 )) && expr $src - $new || echo $num
}

a_job() { echo job done >>/tmp/jobtest; }

account $(dsdiff $(date -d "12 mins" +%s)) a_job &
account 1m echo 1 minute job done &

the account jobs may also be spawned with output file control and simple max-threads support by another (bash) script on the fly or via self implentation.

. Mac for productivity
.. Linux for developement
... Windows for solitaire

 

[Exie]

Thanks XMB,

Sleep isnt a bad idea, I've patched my script up to use this. basically, I want the same script to execute every hour.

It's not nice bypassing our standard job system, but it looks like it's working this way ... Thanks!

 

[PHV]

Have you tried the TZ tip ?

 

[vgersh99]

just be aware that 'date -d' is GNUism and is not available in most stock OSs.

vlad
+----------------------------+
| #include<disclaimer.h> |
+----------------------------+

 

[vgersh99]

here's something to think about:

#!/bin/ksh

# here's my current EPOCH time
currentEpoch=$(/usr/bin/truss /usr/bin/date 2>&1 | /usr/bin/awk '/^time/ {print $NF}')

# here we convert EPOCH back to human readable format
back2Human=$(echo "0t${currentEpoch}=Y" | usr/bin/adb)

now..... adding 1hour [3600 seconds] to the current time [in epoch] and putting "back2Human" in the proper format are left as homework assignment

vlad
+----------------------------+
| #include<disclaimer.h> |
+----------------------------+

 

[xmb]

To implent looping into account.. recursive restarting w/o much changing, not the best way though. Can surely be done shorter.

account() { local sleep=$1 prog=$2 do_loop; export loop everloop; shift 2
  [ ${loop=0} -gt 0 ] && do_loop=1 # || do_loop=0
  [ -z $prog ] && { echo no program to account >&2; return 1; }
  [ -z $sleep ] && sleep=0
  [ -z $everloop ] && { echo -n "waiting $sleep to start '$prog $@'" >&2
    [ ! -z $do_loop ] && echo ", looping $loop times" || echo
  }
  sleep $sleep || return 1

  [ ! -z $do_loop ] && { [ -z $everlast ] && everlast=1 # doesnt work?
    loop=`expr $loop - 1`
  }

  if [ -z "$1" ]; then
    $prog
  else
    $prog "$@"
  fi

  #(( toloop >0 )) && loop=`expr $toloop - 1` account $sleep $prog "$@" &
  [ $loop -gt 0 ] && everloop=1 account $sleep $prog "$@" #&
}

# with the sideeffect of looping once too much
loop=4 account 2 echo slept 2

Do you have to address any maximum alive job count?

. Mac for productivity
.. Linux for developement
... Windows for solitaire

 

[xmb]

vlad, truss was what, freebsd? Whats the few times seen adb?

awk '/^time/ { print $NF; exit }' # may do better

 

[Exie]

Thanks for TZ tip PHV,

I've looked all over the web for some examples, but they are few. I did however read a number of people recomending against it.

The TZ technique is described as "Playing with the TZ variable isn't a reliable method."

... but I did find some other funky code to convert to/from Julian dates, but it's a decent chunk of code, for what I want I think the sleep provides the quickest, simplest solution ....

 

[vgersh99]

xmb,
that was Solaris-based sample - not sure about the others!


vlad
+----------------------------+
| #include<disclaimer.h> |
+----------------------------+

 

[xmb]

vlad,
can you show a whatis adb

 

[Exie]

Thanks again guys,

I do like the code from Vlad, it looks quite compact and neat, however I ran it on our HPUX and with no success.

We dont have truss or adb, so I tried the following:
[blue]/usr/bin/date 2>&1 | /usr/bin/awk '/^time/ {print $NF}'[/blue]

But this didn't produce any output (I'm not that into awk sorry).

None the less, the sleep method is working pretty well.

 

[xmb]

Cheer0s,
truss is something like strace on linux, show system calls. vlad's code is intended to extract the time off time*() called system functions by date, not the date output itself.

. Mac for productivity
.. Linux for developement
... Windows for solitaire

 

[vgersh99]

whatis adb
adb adb (1) - general-purpose debugger

vlad
+----------------------------+
| #include<disclaimer.h> |
+----------------------------+

 

[columb]

If you have access to perl here's a neat perl solution to the time in one hour problem which is to get the time in seconds since the epoch, add 60 * 60 and convert it to whatever format. An example that does NOT give what what you want but demonstrates the principle is

perl -e 'my $now = time; $now += ( 60 * 60 ); print scalar localtime ( $now );'
[code]
The perl gurus on the perl forum can help tidy it up and get the formatting right.

Columb Healy