[Chicago-talk] Script design question

[Young, Darren]

>
> I know it's not Perl, but in the past, I've done something like this:

Doesn't *have* to be Perl, whatever gets the job done.

> 
> Set up a GNU Makefile that looks like:
> 
>     OUTPUTS= $(patsubst %, /export/backups/group%.bkp, A B C 
> D E F [upto] Z)
>     all: $(OUTPUTS)
>     /export/backups/%.bkp:
>             imsbackup -i -f- /gsbims/$* >$@
> 
> Then execute this with "make -j4 all" (might need gmake or gnumake).
> 
> The -j4 will keep 4 jobs running at all times, going on to the next
> one as soon as one finishes.  Works real nice.

Extremely original idea. I haven't actually written a Makefile in quite
some time and never would have thought of this one. Now I'm curious to
see how this would work.

> GNU make can also work off loadaverage instead, if that's 
> your real concern.
> 

It's really a tradeoff between time to complete and performance impact,
so yes, load average should be accounted for. I'll have to take a look
at this option as well and see how that could fit in.

I guess as long as the mail user's crontab has a MAILTO in it, we'll get
"status" information. I did forget to mention that it'll probably be
kicked off from cron. That or as a Tivoli PRESCHEDcmd, haven't decided
yet.