Re: Running IDL from cron

[Craig Markwardt <craigmnet(at)cow.physics.wisc.edu>]

Gwyn Fireman <Gwyn.Fireman@gsfc.nasa.gov> writes:
> Hi, everyone -
> 
> With Deja gone and Google barely functional I have to ask here what I'm 
> sure has been addressed before:

Heh, I tried this in my newsgroup archive and nothing found.  Hmm.

The main problems I've found with running cron jobs are: 
 1. environment variables not set, and
 2. programs won't run because path is not set right (consequence of #1)

The answer to number 2 is to specify all program paths explicitly.  As
for number 1, I would say that you should to write your shell script
to set those variables explicitly as well, and bypass your .cshrc.
Something like this:

#!/bin/sh
HOME=/home/fireman
$HOME/bin/setup_dirs

IDL_PATH=+$HOME/lib/idl:+/usr/local/rsi/idl/lib
EXPERIMENT_DIR=/data/fireman
/usr/local/bin/idl $HOME/scripts/run_job.pro

This way everything is explicit and there isn't a chance for cron to
monkey with it.

Good luck,
Craig

-- 
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Craig B. Markwardt, Ph.D.         EMAIL:    craigmnet@cow.physics.wisc.edu
Astrophysics, IDL, Finance, Derivatives | Remove "net" for better response
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