UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

This one will show how "wet behind the ears" I am but here it goes...

Suppose my boss wants me to run an app every day from the command line. The command line statement looks like this:

$> my_executable_program -my_parameter file > my_outfile

Let's say that one day, I do this:

$> my_executable_program -my_parameter file

and forget to send my output to a file. I have two problems:

1/ my program massages *tons* of data and takes 18 hours to run
2/ It is critical that my boss has the output file for data analysts to review.

Since I don't want to restart my program for scratch, can I...

-pause my process ... like "kill -24 <processnumber>" ,
-edit the command line ... like "fc -e vi my_executable_program..."
-restart my program where it left off... "kill -26 <processnumber>"

(I got the `kill` values on the HP-UX documentation...)

This may sound like a stupid question. I am only trying to learn...thank you for being patient/teaching me.

Al.

Not going to work. Sorry.

You can pause and restart the process. But it will resume where it left off.

You can use fc to edit the history and repair the command. But if you run it, you run a new copy of the process.

But there is a solution here. Your program, "my_executable_file", does not need to accept whatever the shell feeds it for stdin. If it must output to "my_outfile", it should simply open the file itself. Then the error you're worried about becomes impossible.

If you can't modify the program, write a tiny shell script that invokes it correctly. Then just run the script each day.