Shell Programming and Scripting

Originally Posted by jim mcnamara

Yes I do understand scripting....

What you are asking does not make sense.

Assume you are a shell script, executing. How can you know if you are stuck?
You can only guess. Code for how long you are willing to wait then force an exit.
3600 = number of seconds in one hour

Code:

pid=$$
# kill the parent after 3600 seconds
sleep 3600 && kill $pid 2>/dev/null &
child_pid=$!
# [command that runs too long goes here]
sarm pcsp -s 
# if  sarm completed in less than 3600 seconds you get here
kill $child_pid   # stop the child from killing you.

Originally Posted by cero

Ctrl+C is equivalent to kill -SIGINT. man kill may tell you what what signal number sigint is on your system. On Debian linux for example its number 2.
In a shellscript you could start the problem process in the background and then kill it after you have your output.

Code:

# start the process in the background
sarm pcsp  -s CHG_M_P1 &
# store the PID of this process
SARMPID=$!
# here you have to implement something to find out if the process is ready to be killed
# then kill the process
kill -2 $SARMPID

No no no. Don't use kill -9.

It doesn't give the process a chance to cleanly:

1) shut down socket connections

2) clean up temp files

3) inform its children that it is going away

4) reset its terminal characteristics

and so on and so on and so on.

Generally, send 15, and wait a second or two, and if that doesn't
work, send 2, and if that doesn't work, send 1. If that doesn't,
REMOVE THE BINARY because the program is badly behaved!

Don't use kill -9. Don't bring out the combine harvester just to tidy
up the flower pot.