[olug] Handy script...

[Dan Linder]

Last week I needed to start a process at a specific time but at/cron didn't
cut it, and it needed to be fairly OS agnostic.  I came up with a simple
"sleepuntil" script with a bit of help from StackExchange and other online
sources:

#!/bin/sh
WAKE="\"$*\""
SECONDS=$(( $(date -d "$*" +%s) - $(date +%s) ))
HMS=$(date -u -d @${SECONDS} +"%T")
echo Sleeping until ${WAKE}, HMS=${HMS}, or ${SECONDS} seconds.
sleep ${SECONDS}


Then I run it like this:

$ sleepuntil 14:25 ; /path/to/my_command


I also use the "screen" command to keep terminal sessions active, so even
if my connection is terminated before the sleepuntil command kicks off it
will still complete and let the "my_command" program run.

Just my $0.02 worth...

Dan

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