I have a Solaris 2.6 machine and I execute the following:

while [ 1 ]
do
echo looping
sleep 15
done

I would assume the looping would be printed every 15 seconds but it doesn't. consecutive looping gets printed without a 15 second gap. Any idea what might be the reason ?

Thanks

I just tried this with ksh on Solaris 2.6 and I get a 15 second delay between each "looping". What shell are you using?

If you are using sh/ksh/bash, you are confusing yourself a little with the "while [ 1 ]" syntax. "while [ 0 ]" would also be an infinite loop. But this doesn't explain your result.

I am using /bin/ksh

Your "sleep" command must be broken somehow. Put a "type sleep" as the first line of the script to see where it is. Does "sleep 15" work from the command line?

sleep is in /usr/bin/sleep

There is also a sleep in /bin/sleep.

I tried /bin/sleep also. That also didn't work. Though if I do a sleep 150, it does sleep for a longer time(a little over a second) but definately not 150 seconds.

This is strange. Are you the sysadmin? It sounds like someone replaced the sleep command with one that works in tenths of a second instead of seconds. Does sleep 150 do the trick?

When I do a "cksum /usr/bin/cksum /usr/bin/sleep, I get:
1252908489 6844 /usr/bin/cksum
2990595405 4580 /usr/bin/sleep
What do you get?

Also, type "date", wait 15 seconds using a watch, then type "date" again. Did the system time advance by about 15 seconds?

I did the cksum and I get the same results as yours.

Also, I did the date, waited 15 seconds and the time had advanced by exactly 15 seconds.

I have the root passwd.