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at syntax

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  at syntax General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> - 2011-05-30 18:08 +0000
    Re: at syntax Lew Pitcher <lpitcher@teksavvy.com> - 2011-05-30 16:04 -0400
      Re: at syntax General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> - 2011-05-30 23:16 +0000
    Re: at syntax Chris Davies <chris-usenet@roaima.co.uk> - 2011-05-31 09:44 +0100
      Re: at syntax General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> - 2011-05-31 12:37 +0000
        Re: at syntax Chris Davies <chris-usenet@roaima.co.uk> - 2011-05-31 14:54 +0100
          Re: at syntax General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> - 2011-05-31 18:52 +0000
            Re: at syntax Chris Davies <chris-usenet@roaima.co.uk> - 2011-06-02 21:03 +0100
              Re: at syntax dave.gma+news002@googlemail.com.invalid (Dave Gibson) - 2011-06-02 22:24 +0100
                Re: at syntax Chris Davies <chris-usenet@roaima.co.uk> - 2011-06-03 09:34 +0100
                  Re: at syntax General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> - 2011-06-03 13:21 +0000
                    Re: at syntax Chris Davies <chris-usenet@roaima.co.uk> - 2011-06-03 15:46 +0100
    Re: at syntax Kevin Snodgrass <kdsnodgrass@yahoo.com> - 2011-06-01 02:08 +0000
      Re: at syntax General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> - 2011-06-01 02:50 +0000
        Re: at syntax Kevin Snodgrass <kdsnodgrass@yahoo.com> - 2011-06-01 04:30 +0000
        Re: at syntax Kevin Snodgrass <kdsnodgrass@yahoo.com> - 2011-06-01 04:31 +0000
        Re: at syntax Kevin Snodgrass <kdsnodgrass@yahoo.com> - 2011-06-01 04:31 +0000
        Re: at syntax Kevin Snodgrass <kdsnodgrass@yahoo.com> - 2011-06-01 04:30 +0000

#1285 — at syntax

at adds a week to a day if the day is today. To clarify if today is Monday 
and I schedule something as

at 10:00 PM MON < foo

it will execute foo a week from today rather than tonight. I'm using 
scripts to schedule events so I don't want to us TODAY to specify the 
date, I want to use the generic day of the week. Is there a way to make at 
schedule an event on the same day or do I have to put a date test into the 
script?

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#1286

On May 30, 2011 14:08, in comp.os.linux.misc, schvantzkoph@yahoo.com wrote:

> at adds a week to a day if the day is today. To clarify if today is Monday
> and I schedule something as
> 
> at 10:00 PM MON < foo
> 
> it will execute foo a week from today rather than tonight. I'm using
> scripts to schedule events so I don't want to us TODAY to specify the
> date, I want to use the generic day of the week. Is there a way to make at
> schedule an event on the same day or do I have to put a date test into the
> script?

Try
  at 10pm
for 10 pm today

-- 
Lew Pitcher
Master Codewright & JOAT-in-training   | Registered Linux User #112576
Me: http://pitcher.digitalfreehold.ca/ | Just Linux: http://justlinux.ca/
----------      Slackware - Because I know what I'm doing.         ------

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#1287

On Mon, 30 May 2011 16:04:07 -0400, Lew Pitcher wrote:

> On May 30, 2011 14:08, in comp.os.linux.misc, schvantzkoph@yahoo.com
> wrote:
> 
>> at adds a week to a day if the day is today. To clarify if today is
>> Monday and I schedule something as
>> 
>> at 10:00 PM MON < foo
>> 
>> it will execute foo a week from today rather than tonight. I'm using
>> scripts to schedule events so I don't want to us TODAY to specify the
>> date, I want to use the generic day of the week. Is there a way to make
>> at schedule an event on the same day or do I have to put a date test
>> into the script?
> 
> Try
>   at 10pm
> for 10 pm today

I need to be able to specify the day but have it do the right thing. The 
script might be executed on any day so if teh script gets executed on 
Tuesday and it schedules something on Monday then that event will happen 
on the next Monday but if the script gets called on Monday morning and the 
event is for Monday night then it will execute that night not the next 
week.

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#1288

General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> wrote:
> at adds a week to a day if the day is today.

Not necessarily:

    chris:~$ date
    Tue May 31 09:32:06 BST 2011

    chris:~$ at 10am today
    warning: commands will be executed using /bin/sh
    at> date >/tmp/1.at
    at> <EOT>
    job 794 at Tue May 31 10:00:00 2011

    chris:~$ at 9am today
    at: refusing to create job destined in the past

    chris:~$ at 10am
    warning: commands will be executed using /bin/sh
    at> date >/tmp/2.at
    at> <EOT>
    job 795 at Tue May 31 10:00:00 2011

    chris:~$ at 9am
    warning: commands will be executed using /bin/sh
    at> date >/tmp/3.at
    at> <EOT>
    job 796 at Wed Jun  1 09:00:00 2011

The "today" modifier forces the date parser to use today's date. If the
time has passed then the job cannot be queued. If you omit the "today"
modifier, the at program tries to make sense of what you're requesting,
and if the time is earlier than "now", it assumes you meant tomorrow.

This sort of interpretation can be great for humans, but potentially
very complex for other programs to use correctly. Fortunately, at also
provides an absolute date/time specification:

    chris:~$ at 13:45 utc 10 jun 2011
    warning: commands will be executed using /bin/sh
    at> date >/tmp/4.at
    at> <EOT>
    job 797 at Fri Jun 10 13:45:00 2011

Unfortunately, it looks like this version of at may not honour the
timezone parameter (I need to check this further).

Chris

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#1291

On Tue, 31 May 2011 09:44:48 +0100, Chris Davies wrote:

> General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> at adds a week to a day if the day is today.
> 
> Not necessarily:
> 
>     chris:~$ date
>     Tue May 31 09:32:06 BST 2011
> 
>     chris:~$ at 10am today
>     warning: commands will be executed using /bin/sh at> date >/tmp/1.at
>     at> <EOT>
>     job 794 at Tue May 31 10:00:00 2011
> 
>     chris:~$ at 9am today
>     at: refusing to create job destined in the past
> 
>     chris:~$ at 10am
>     warning: commands will be executed using /bin/sh at> date >/tmp/2.at
>     at> <EOT>
>     job 795 at Tue May 31 10:00:00 2011
> 
>     chris:~$ at 9am
>     warning: commands will be executed using /bin/sh at> date >/tmp/3.at
>     at> <EOT>
>     job 796 at Wed Jun  1 09:00:00 2011
> 
> The "today" modifier forces the date parser to use today's date. If the
> time has passed then the job cannot be queued. If you omit the "today"
> modifier, the at program tries to make sense of what you're requesting,
> and if the time is earlier than "now", it assumes you meant tomorrow.
> 
> This sort of interpretation can be great for humans, but potentially
> very complex for other programs to use correctly. Fortunately, at also
> provides an absolute date/time specification:
> 
>     chris:~$ at 13:45 utc 10 jun 2011
>     warning: commands will be executed using /bin/sh at> date >/tmp/4.at
>     at> <EOT>
>     job 797 at Fri Jun 10 13:45:00 2011
> 
> Unfortunately, it looks like this version of at may not honour the
> timezone parameter (I need to check this further).
> 
> Chris

I wrote a wrapper that checks the day and fixes it, but I would prefer if 
there was a way for at to do the right thing itself,

#!/bin/csh -f

if(`date +%a` == $3) then
 echo at $1 $2 TODAY < /usr/local/csh/$4.csh
 at $1 $2 TODAY < /usr/local/csh/$4.csh
else
 echo at $1 $2 $3 < /usr/local/csh/$4.csh
 at $1 $2 $3 < /usr/local/csh/$4.csh
endif

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#1293

General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I wrote a wrapper that checks the day and fixes it, but I would prefer if 
> there was a way for at to do the right thing itself,

As far as I can tell from the requirement in your original post, "at"
does do the right thing itself.

    at -V
    at version 3.1.12

    # Assuming it's now midday,
    at 10pm today   # tonight
    at 9am today    # fails, because 9am has already happened

I must admit that I don't understand, given you want something to happen
"today", why you are loathe to use the "today" qualifier.

With regards to your scriptlet you pasted, isn't this fundamentally the
same as something like this?

    at 2200 `date +'%e %b %Y'`  # 10pm today, with explicit date

Chris

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#1295

On Tue, 31 May 2011 14:54:09 +0100, Chris Davies wrote:

> General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> I wrote a wrapper that checks the day and fixes it, but I would prefer
>> if there was a way for at to do the right thing itself,
> 
> As far as I can tell from the requirement in your original post, "at"
> does do the right thing itself.
> 
>     at -V
>     at version 3.1.12
> 
>     # Assuming it's now midday,
>     at 10pm today   # tonight
>     at 9am today    # fails, because 9am has already happened
> 
> I must admit that I don't understand, given you want something to happen
> "today", why you are loathe to use the "today" qualifier.
> 
> With regards to your scriptlet you pasted, isn't this fundamentally the
> same as something like this?
> 
>     at 2200 `date +'%e %b %Y'`  # 10pm today, with explicit date
> 
> Chris

It's a general purpose script to schedule captures of TV shows using an 
HDHOMERUN box. If it were a one time thing then using TODAY would be OK, 
but it's something that might be executed on any day of the week. I don't 
want to have to edit it every time I run it.

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#1324

General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> wrote:
> If it were a one time thing then using TODAY would be OK, 
> but it's something that might be executed on any day of the week. I don't 
> want to have to edit it every time I run it.

So what do you actually want to do? I believe I've satisfied your original
description, but clearly there is a disjoint between explanation and
(my) understanding.

If it's regular, use cron. If it's one-off (or so), use at.

If you want to run a job on a particular day of the week, specify that
day. If the time you're giving has already passed on that day (i.e. it's
"today") then the only reasonable thing the system can do is either (a)
refuse the job, or (b) schedule it for next week.

Really puzzled,
Chris

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#1325

Chris Davies <chris-usenet@roaima.co.uk> wrote:
> General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> If it were a one time thing then using TODAY would be OK, 
>> but it's something that might be executed on any day of the week. I don't 
>> want to have to edit it every time I run it.
> 
> So what do you actually want to do? I believe I've satisfied your original
> description, but clearly there is a disjoint between explanation and
> (my) understanding.
> 
> If it's regular, use cron. If it's one-off (or so), use at.
> 
> If you want to run a job on a particular day of the week, specify that
> day. If the time you're giving has already passed on that day (i.e. it's
       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If the given day is today, ``at'' will add a week regardless of the
current time-of-day.  Here:

  $ date
  Thu Jun  2 22:13:12 BST 2011
  $ echo "echo hello" | at 11:30pm thursday
  job 638 at Thu Jun  9 23:30:00 2011

> "today") then the only reasonable thing the system can do is either (a)
> refuse the job, or (b) schedule it for next week.

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#1327

Dave Gibson <dave.gma+news002@googlemail.com.invalid> wrote:
>  $ date
>  Thu Jun  2 22:13:12 BST 2011
>  $ echo "echo hello" | at 11:30pm thursday
>  job 638 at Thu Jun  9 23:30:00 2011

Thank you for the counter example. And I presume that because (when you
ran this) it was Thursday, and the time was in the future, you expected
"at" to schedule it for that same day. Personally, I don't think I'd
expect that (think about the semantics of English: "can you book me
into a hotel on Friday, please" implies *next* Friday rather than
today). However, I believe I now see what the OP is getting at.

So, some suggestions for the OP:

* Use a construct like this one (below) to determine what "today's" DoW
(Day of week) is:
    TODAY=$(date +%A | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')

* Remove the DoW specification for "at" entirely for the current date
    test "$TODAY" = "$DOW" && DOW=

* Replace the DoW specification to "at" with "today" as appropriate
    test "$TODAY" = "$DOW" && DOW='today'

* Avoid using DoW at all and use absolute dates

Chris

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#1328

On Fri, 03 Jun 2011 09:34:14 +0100, Chris Davies wrote:

> Dave Gibson <dave.gma+news002@googlemail.com.invalid> wrote:
>>  $ date
>>  Thu Jun  2 22:13:12 BST 2011
>>  $ echo "echo hello" | at 11:30pm thursday job 638 at Thu Jun  9
>>  23:30:00 2011
> 
> Thank you for the counter example. And I presume that because (when you
> ran this) it was Thursday, and the time was in the future, you expected
> "at" to schedule it for that same day. Personally, I don't think I'd
> expect that (think about the semantics of English: "can you book me into
> a hotel on Friday, please" implies *next* Friday rather than today).
> However, I believe I now see what the OP is getting at.
> 
> So, some suggestions for the OP:
> 
> * Use a construct like this one (below) to determine what "today's" DoW
> (Day of week) is:
>     TODAY=$(date +%A | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')
> 
> * Remove the DoW specification for "at" entirely for the current date
>     test "$TODAY" = "$DOW" && DOW=
> 
> * Replace the DoW specification to "at" with "today" as appropriate
>     test "$TODAY" = "$DOW" && DOW='today'
> 
> * Avoid using DoW at all and use absolute dates
> 
> Chris

Absolute dates don't work, it's for general purpose scripts which are 
going to be used for a long time. The person that I've written the scripts 
for wants to be able to schedule the capture of a TV show on a demand 
basis, which means that she might run the script on the same day as the 
show as well as running it in advance. Apparently at has no way of 
distinguishing between THIS MONDAY and NEXT MONDAY. I've written a wrapper 
for at called schedule_event which fixes the problem

#!/bin/csh -f
set path=(/usr/local/bin /usr/local/sbin /usr/bin /sbin /usr/sbin /bin /
usr/X11R6/bin /usr/local/csh)


if(`date +%a` == $3) then
 echo at $1 $2 TODAY < /usr/local/csh/$4.csh
 at $1 $2 TODAY < /usr/local/csh/$4.csh
else
 echo at $1 $2 $3 < /usr/local/csh/$4.csh
 at $1 $2 $3 < /usr/local/csh/$4.csh
endif

The line in the script that does the scheduling then looks like

schedule_event 8:00 PM Thu big_bang

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#1330

General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Apparently at has no way of distinguishing between THIS MONDAY and
> NEXT MONDAY.

It does, but it doesn't work the way you want it do.
Chris

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#1300

On Mon, 30 May 2011 18:08:58 +0000, General Schvantzkoph wrote:

> at adds a week to a day if the day is today. To clarify if today is
> Monday and I schedule something as
> 
> at 10:00 PM MON < foo
> 
> it will execute foo a week from today rather than tonight. I'm using
> scripts to schedule events so I don't want to us TODAY to specify the
> date, I want to use the generic day of the week. Is there a way to make
> at schedule an event on the same day or do I have to put a date test
> into the script?

Not sure *exactly* what you are trying to accomplish, but I do something 
similar.  I record some things, 5 days a week, every week.  I have a 
script that does this with /usr/bin/at, it looks something like this:

$ cat ~/bin/weekly.sh
#!/bin/bash

BINDIR=$HOME/bin
ATCMD="at -q l"

$ATCMD -f $BINDIR/Leno0_1.0.sh       10:33PM  monday
$ATCMD -f $BINDIR/Leno0_1.0.sh       10:33PM  tuesday
$ATCMD -f $BINDIR/Leno0_1.0.sh       10:33PM  wednesday
$ATCMD -f $BINDIR/Leno0_1.0.sh       10:33PM  thursday
$ATCMD -f $BINDIR/Leno0_1.0.sh       10:33PM  friday

...etc...
---end---

It's actually more complex, but you get the idea.

The at command has multiple queues, thus the "at -q l" command.  Then I 
can query whether the recordings are properly set with "atq -q l" for 
this particular set of recordings, and not see the other several dozen 
commands I have queued up.

The actual recording logic is setup in $HOME/bin/Leno0_1.0.sh.  I use 
this naming convention to specify the recording device (0), and the 
length in hours (1.0).  Some other things that I record may have varying 
lengths or may be scheduled for other recording devices.  It gets 
complicated. :-)

You could have a line at the end of the above to reload itself to run 
next week, thus self perpetuation.  At the end, a line similar to this:

at -f $HOME/bin/weekly.sh 1:00PM sunday

Since it would be slightly later than 1PM by the time it gets to this 
last line, it will be scheduled to run next sunday.  You might even put 
in a "sleep 5" or some such just to make sure.

Does that help you out, General?

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#1301

On Wed, 01 Jun 2011 02:08:34 +0000, Kevin Snodgrass wrote:

> On Mon, 30 May 2011 18:08:58 +0000, General Schvantzkoph wrote:
> 
>> at adds a week to a day if the day is today. To clarify if today is
>> Monday and I schedule something as
>> 
>> at 10:00 PM MON < foo
>> 
>> it will execute foo a week from today rather than tonight. I'm using
>> scripts to schedule events so I don't want to us TODAY to specify the
>> date, I want to use the generic day of the week. Is there a way to make
>> at schedule an event on the same day or do I have to put a date test
>> into the script?
> 
> Not sure *exactly* what you are trying to accomplish, but I do something
> similar.  I record some things, 5 days a week, every week.  I have a
> script that does this with /usr/bin/at, it looks something like this:
> 
> $ cat ~/bin/weekly.sh
> #!/bin/bash
> 
> BINDIR=$HOME/bin
> ATCMD="at -q l"
> 
> $ATCMD -f $BINDIR/Leno0_1.0.sh       10:33PM  monday $ATCMD -f
> $BINDIR/Leno0_1.0.sh       10:33PM  tuesday $ATCMD -f
> $BINDIR/Leno0_1.0.sh       10:33PM  wednesday $ATCMD -f
> $BINDIR/Leno0_1.0.sh       10:33PM  thursday $ATCMD -f
> $BINDIR/Leno0_1.0.sh       10:33PM  friday
> 
> ...etc...
> ---end---
> 
> It's actually more complex, but you get the idea.
> 
> The at command has multiple queues, thus the "at -q l" command.  Then I
> can query whether the recordings are properly set with "atq -q l" for
> this particular set of recordings, and not see the other several dozen
> commands I have queued up.
> 
> The actual recording logic is setup in $HOME/bin/Leno0_1.0.sh.  I use
> this naming convention to specify the recording device (0), and the
> length in hours (1.0).  Some other things that I record may have varying
> lengths or may be scheduled for other recording devices.  It gets
> complicated. :-)
> 
> You could have a line at the end of the above to reload itself to run
> next week, thus self perpetuation.  At the end, a line similar to this:
> 
> at -f $HOME/bin/weekly.sh 1:00PM sunday
> 
> Since it would be slightly later than 1PM by the time it gets to this
> last line, it will be scheduled to run next sunday.  You might even put
> in a "sleep 5" or some such just to make sure.
> 
> Does that help you out, General?

I already have the automatic reload in my script, I have the schedule 
script reschedule itself every week

at now + 1 week < /usr/local/csh/schedule_tv

Using multiple queues is a good idea, thanks I'll add that. It sounds like 
I'll just have to use my wrapper script to solve the same day problem.

I have another question. Is there a switch to get atq to give you details 
of the scheduled job?

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#1303

On Wed, 01 Jun 2011 02:50:50 +0000, General Schvantzkoph wrote:

> Using multiple queues is a good idea, thanks I'll add that. It sounds

You're welcome...

I use queue names that have some relevance to the type of job.  Queue 's' 
is for Speed Channel (mostly F1 Races), 'w' is for web related (I wget 
some volatile webpages at various times of day), 'f' for football, etc..

Not all of my jobs are to schedules tv recordings.  I think I typically 
have 6-10 jobs/day, M-F and 3-6 weekends.  Some jobs do many things.

> like I'll just have to use my wrapper script to solve the same day
> problem.

Guess I don't understand the problem then.  Is there a reason why you 
can't run the schedule script on sunday, to schedule for the entire week?

> I have another question. Is there a switch to get atq to give you
> details of the scheduled job?

Well, not atq, since atq is an alias for at -q.  But the actual command 
does.  Try:

at -c <job number>|less

You get a bunch of environment related stuff in there too.

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#1304

On Wed, 01 Jun 2011 02:50:50 +0000, General Schvantzkoph wrote:

> Using multiple queues is a good idea, thanks I'll add that. It sounds

You're welcome...

I use queue names that have some relevance to the type of job.  Queue 's' 
is for Speed Channel (mostly F1 Races), 'w' is for web related (I wget 
some volatile webpages at various times of day), 'f' for football, etc..

Not all of my jobs are to schedules tv recordings.  I think I typically 
have 6-10 jobs/day, M-F and 3-6 weekends.  Some jobs do many things.

> like I'll just have to use my wrapper script to solve the same day
> problem.

Guess I don't understand the problem then.  Is there a reason why you 
can't run the schedule script on sunday, to schedule for the entire week?

> I have another question. Is there a switch to get atq to give you
> details of the scheduled job?

Well, not atq, since atq is an alias for at -q.  But the actual command 
does.  Try:

at -c <job number>|less

You get a bunch of environment related stuff in there too.

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#1305

On Wed, 01 Jun 2011 02:50:50 +0000, General Schvantzkoph wrote:

> Using multiple queues is a good idea, thanks I'll add that. It sounds

You're welcome...

I use queue names that have some relevance to the type of job.  Queue 's' 
is for Speed Channel (mostly F1 Races), 'w' is for web related (I wget 
some volatile webpages at various times of day), 'f' for football, etc..

Not all of my jobs are to schedules tv recordings.  I think I typically 
have 6-10 jobs/day, M-F and 3-6 weekends.  Some jobs do many things.

> like I'll just have to use my wrapper script to solve the same day
> problem.

Guess I don't understand the problem then.  Is there a reason why you 
can't run the schedule script on sunday, to schedule for the entire week?

> I have another question. Is there a switch to get atq to give you
> details of the scheduled job?

Well, not atq, since atq is an alias for at -q.  But the actual command 
does.  Try:

at -c <job number>|less

You get a bunch of environment related stuff in there too.

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#1306

On Wed, 01 Jun 2011 02:50:50 +0000, General Schvantzkoph wrote:

> Using multiple queues is a good idea, thanks I'll add that. It sounds

You're welcome...

I use queue names that have some relevance to the type of job.  Queue 's' 
is for Speed Channel (mostly F1 Races), 'w' is for web related (I wget 
some volatile webpages at various times of day), 'f' for football, etc..

Not all of my jobs are to schedules tv recordings.  I think I typically 
have 6-10 jobs/day, M-F and 3-6 weekends.  Some jobs do many things.

> like I'll just have to use my wrapper script to solve the same day
> problem.

Guess I don't understand the problem then.  Is there a reason why you 
can't run the schedule script on sunday, to schedule for the entire week?

> I have another question. Is there a switch to get atq to give you
> details of the scheduled job?

Well, not atq, since atq is an alias for at -q.  But the actual command 
does.  Try:

at -c <job number>|less

You get a bunch of environment related stuff in there too.

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