UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

This might be a stupid question, but here it goes. Do you use the same command to kill a job in a directory as you would from the root prompt?

And in that directory, how would you know which job is the oldest?

Thanks,
Cindy

Well, jobs don't really reside in a directory. Every process will have a current working directory, but that is just a default place to look for stuff. The process itself doesn't sit there.

The root prompt usually refers to this:
#

which indicates that the user running the shell is a special user called "root" who has special power. The user called "root" should not be confused with / which is the root directory.

And the kill command should not work differently based you your current directory. But the kill command does work differently for the user "root". Ordinary users can kill only thier own processes. But root can kill almost any process.

Don't be afraid to ask newbie questions. None of us were born knowing this stuff.

i do know how to kill a job from root, but in a root directory i have some jobs that are spooled and sometime there is just one that has garbage that needs to be killed.

when i do "try" to kill the job in the directory, nothing happens. the job is still there. that is why i was asking if a different command is used when you kill a job under a directory.

Is this a question about jobs submitted via the "at" command? If so, "at -l" can list them all and "at -r jobid" can remove them. The "at" command does store furure jobs in a directory, but you should be using the "at" command itself to manage them.