starting programs in .bashrc
 

Hi,

whats a good way to start a program in the .bashrc file for a particular user only on the condition that the program hasn't already been started by someone else.

I can get 'ps -A | grep prog_name' to tell me if the program is running but I can't figure out the syntax to put this in an if statement in my .bashrc file

bluemoose

The exit status of ps is stored in $?. Make the following statement an if statement to check $? for the grep exit status. My guess is that a zero exit status means that prog_name is running and a non zero exit status means that prog_name is not running, but you may have to figure that out by trial and error.