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.1‐2008, 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.1‐2008, Chapter 8, Environment
       Variables

COPYRIGHT         top

       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
       from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information
       Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open
       Group Base Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the
       Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open
       Group.  (This is POSIX.1-2008 with the 2013 Technical Corrigendum 1
       applied.) 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.unix.org/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                 2013                           BATCH(1P)

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