Repeat at random intervals
 

I'm trying to come up with a way to repeat things at random intervals. I think I need to use "at" and call an executable file that terminates by placing a new "at" command.

I have a collection of "cute" sounds and I want my box to interesting little noises at odd, infrequent intervals.

This is what I've come up with so far -- creating a file something like this:

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# filename: cute_sounds.txt
# repeats a selected sound at random interval
# as shown, repeats from 1 to 30 days from "now"

# replace "some_cute_sound_file.wav" with the name of the
# sound file to be played

play some_cute_sound_file.wav

at now * (1 + (int) (30.0 * (rand() / (RAND_MAX + 1.0)))) days cute_sounds.txt

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Has anyone done something like this before? Any ideas or tips to help me along the way?

- Bill

Instead of an at job, why not just make the script sleep for some interval? When you run it, run it with "nohup <script name> > /dev/null 2>&1&" That will background it, with it's own process, so even if you log out, it'll continue to run.

Will this last through a reboot? I'm thinking to have the sound(s) repeat at infrequent intervals for the indefinite future. Rebooting would terminate any background process, but I think an at command will run at the scheduled time, even after a reboot.

Can at commands be filed to run after logout? Can they be set to run after login if the set time was missed due to the user being logged out? (Would it be useful to have the command entered as root?)


- Bill

If you're worried about the command running after reboot, add it to your startup scripts! I don't know Fedora's methodology off the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure they still use rc.local -- this is where you can put custom startup scripts; anything therein is run just before the first login prompt is displayed.

Beat me to it...:)