batch(1p) — Linux manual page

PROLOG | NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | OPERANDS | STDIN | INPUT FILES | ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES | ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS | STDOUT | STDERR | OUTPUT FILES | EXTENDED DESCRIPTION | EXIT STATUS | CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS | APPLICATION USAGE | EXAMPLES | RATIONALE | FUTURE DIRECTIONS | SEE ALSO | COPYRIGHT

BATCH(1P)               POSIX Programmer's Manual              BATCH(1P)

PROLOG         top

       This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The
       Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the
       corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior),
       or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME         top

       batch — schedule commands to be executed in a batch queue

SYNOPSIS         top

       batch

DESCRIPTION         top

       The batch utility shall read commands from standard input and
       schedule them for execution in a batch queue. It shall be the
       equivalent of the command:

           at -q b -m now

       where queue b is a special at queue, specifically for batch jobs.
       Batch jobs shall be submitted to the batch queue with no time
       constraints and shall be run by the system using algorithms,
       based on unspecified factors, that may vary with each invocation
       of batch.

       Users shall be permitted to use batch if their name appears in
       the file at.allow which is located in an implementation-defined
       directory.  If that file does not exist, the file at.deny, which
       is located in an implementation-defined directory, shall be
       checked to determine whether the user shall be denied access to
       batch.  If neither file exists, only a process with appropriate
       privileges shall be allowed to submit a job. If only at.deny
       exists and is empty, global usage shall be permitted. The
       at.allow and at.deny files shall consist of one user name per
       line.

OPTIONS         top

       None.

OPERANDS         top

       None.

STDIN         top

       The standard input shall be a text file consisting of commands
       acceptable to the shell command language described in Chapter 2,
       Shell Command Language.

INPUT FILES         top

       The text files at.allow and at.deny, which are located in an
       implementation-defined directory, shall contain zero or more user
       names, one per line, of users who are, respectively, authorized
       or denied access to the at and batch utilities.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES         top

       The following environment variables shall affect the execution of
       batch:

       LANG      Provide a default value for the internationalization
                 variables that are unset or null. (See the Base
                 Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section 8.2,
                 Internationalization Variables for the precedence of
                 internationalization variables used to determine the
                 values of locale categories.)

       LC_ALL    If set to a non-empty string value, override the values
                 of all the other internationalization variables.

       LC_CTYPE  Determine the locale for the interpretation of
                 sequences of bytes of text data as characters (for
                 example, single-byte as opposed to multi-byte
                 characters in arguments and input files).

       LC_MESSAGES
                 Determine the locale that should be used to affect the
                 format and contents of diagnostic messages written to
                 standard error and informative messages written to
                 standard output.

       LC_TIME   Determine the format and contents for date and time
                 strings written by batch.

       NLSPATH   Determine the location of message catalogs for the
                 processing of LC_MESSAGES.

       SHELL     Determine the name of a command interpreter to be used
                 to invoke the at-job. If the variable is unset or null,
                 sh shall be used. If it is set to a value other than a
                 name for sh, the implementation shall do one of the
                 following: use that shell; use sh; use the login shell
                 from the user database; any of the preceding
                 accompanied by a warning diagnostic about which was
                 chosen.

       TZ        Determine the timezone. The job shall be submitted for
                 execution at the time specified by timespec or -t time
                 relative to the timezone specified by the TZ variable.
                 If timespec specifies a timezone, it overrides TZ.  If
                 timespec does not specify a timezone and TZ is unset or
                 null, an unspecified default timezone shall be used.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS         top

       Default.

STDOUT         top

       When standard input is a terminal, prompts of unspecified format
       for each line of the user input described in the STDIN section
       may be written to standard output.

STDERR         top

       The following shall be written to standard error when a job has
       been successfully submitted:

           "job %s at %s\n", at_job_id, <date>

       where date shall be equivalent in format to the output of:

           date +"%a %b %e %T %Y"

       The date and time written shall be adjusted so that they appear
       in the timezone of the user (as determined by the TZ variable).

       Neither this, nor warning messages concerning the selection of
       the command interpreter, are considered a diagnostic that changes
       the exit status.

       Diagnostic messages, if any, shall be written to standard error.

OUTPUT FILES         top

       None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION         top

       None.

EXIT STATUS         top

       The following exit values shall be returned:

        0    Successful completion.

       >0    An error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS         top

       The job shall not be scheduled.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE         top

       It may be useful to redirect standard output within the specified
       commands.

EXAMPLES         top

        1. This sequence can be used at a terminal:

               batch
               sort < file >outfile
               EOT

        2. This sequence, which demonstrates redirecting standard error
           to a pipe, is useful in a command procedure (the sequence of
           output redirection specifications is significant):

               batch <<!
               diff file1 file2 2>&1 >outfile | mailx mygroup
               !

RATIONALE         top

       Early proposals described batch in a manner totally separated
       from at, even though the historical model treated it almost as a
       synonym for at -qb.  A number of features were added to list and
       control batch work separately from those in at.  Upon further
       reflection, it was decided that the benefit of this did not merit
       the change to the historical interface.

       The -m option was included on the equivalent at command because
       it is historical practice to mail results to the submitter, even
       if all job-produced output is redirected. As explained in the
       RATIONALE for at, the now keyword submits the job for immediate
       execution (after scheduling delays), despite some historical
       systems where at now would have been considered an error.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS         top

       None.

SEE ALSO         top

       at(1p)

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Chapter 8,
       Environment Variables

COPYRIGHT         top

       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic
       form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information
       Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The
       Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright
       (C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
       Engineers, Inc and The Open Group.  In the event of any
       discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The
       Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group
       Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be
       obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

       Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page
       are most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of
       the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see
       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .

IEEE/The Open Group               2017                         BATCH(1P)

Pages that refer to this page: at(1p)