batch(1p) — Linux manual page
BATCH(1P) POSIX Programmer's Manual BATCH(1P)
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or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.
NAME
batch — schedule commands to be executed in a batch queue
SYNOPSIS
batch
DESCRIPTION
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
None.
OPERANDS
None.
STDIN
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
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
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
Default.
STDOUT
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
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
None.
EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
None.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values shall be returned:
0 Successful completion.
>0 An error occurred.
CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
The job shall not be scheduled.
The following sections are informative.
APPLICATION USAGE
It may be useful to redirect standard output within the specified
commands.
EXAMPLES
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
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
None.
SEE ALSO
at(1p)
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Chapter 8,
Environment Variables
COPYRIGHT
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)