Hi all,

I have a script which uses a program to convert a series of files. One of the features of the program is a continue function so it can span across disjointed files which are synchronous and it works on a 10second timer.

i.e. if it can find a new joined file in 10seconds then the program continues.

So the problem is that it is hard to batch this program up to do lots of files with this continue flag on as when it cant find the next joined file it just hangs forever and needs to be CTRL-C to kill.

So - finally the question.

How can i use pkill to specifically kill this program after a certain time because i know if i set the time to say 20secs then this is when it has finished and needs to be pkilled so the bash sh can continue...?

something like:

someprogram -i someinputfile
pkill someprogram if timer > 20sec

how do i write this in a sh script where i want to run the script but still keep control over a timer so it can kill it if it has hung?

cheers

Baz.

You almost had it :}

someprogram -i someinputfile&
sleep 20
pkill someprogram

Oh...

will this work if somprogram doesnt terminate?

i thought it may need some parallel logic or the pkill with a timer before the command for someprogram..? Or the wait command then || pkill

I did some googling and came up with:

------------------------
for t in $timeout $delay
do
while test $t -gt $interval
do
sleep $interval
kill -0 $$ || exit
t=`expr $t - $interval`
done
sleep $t
kill $SIG $$ && kill -0 $$ || exit
SIG=-KILL
done
) 2> /dev/null &

exec "$@"
-------------------------

this looks sort of what i was thinking but i am a linux newbie so it is a little hard to understand what is going on.

How would you write this in a basic bash shell with the reference to just one program?

Baz.

Try this:

echo "pkill -KILL -f 'someprogram'" | at now + 20 minutes
someprogram -i someinputfile
echo "after the death of someprogram"