END { open my $fh, ">", "done$param" or die $! }
[download]

• Why do we need END{}, instead of plain -unblocked- system call?
• It is unclear to me where do you get @done_list. I assume obtaining them by glob? Like these

  # in master.pl
  
  my @done_list = glob("done*");
  
  SLEEPY:
  while (1) 
  {
      sleep(5);
      for my $done (@done_list)
      {
          next SLEEPY if ! -e $done;
      };
      last;
  };
  
  
  # cat files now:
  [download]

• In my case the although the file is created may not indicate that it is completed. Thus the file existence checking with -e may not reflect the completion.
  Does the END block you have guarantees the checking that the file is 100% completed? Please correct me if I'm wrong here.

Hi, this is monkey_boy (not logged in, as im at home),
• the "touch" is to create an empty dummy file, seperate from your results file.
  The reasoning is that your results files will be created at the start of the processing, so your master script cannot check for the existance as proof of completion.
• The END block always get executed at just before a script terminates, so its as good a place as any to "touch" the file.
• @done_list is left for you to code, its simple perl, you have a list of jobs somewhere, convert them with a regex into a list of "done" files.
• In reply to shltn's question, his way is probably better, as you'll hopefully get an error on failure (but given my experience with sun grid engine this is not always the case ;))

Hope this is helpfull. monkey_boy

@done_list is left for you to code, its simple perl, you have a list of jobs somewhere, convert them with a regex into a list of "done" files.

Hi monkey_boy,

Just to double confirm, @done_list will contain list of dummy files created in END block right? Or is it a list of actual output files? Sorry I'm a bit slow here....

Regards,
Edward

#!/usr/bin/bash

cd ~/some_dir
(perl mycode.pl $1 $2 > ~/some_out_dir/param_set$1.out.tmp
  && mv ~/some_out_dir/param_set$1.out)
    || touch ~/some_out_dir/param_set$1.fail
[download]

Though, it should be better ways to synchronize partial jobs over the cluster.

...you will have to poll from time to time to see if all the result files exist or if "fail" files are there, to requeue the jobs.

Hi salva,

Thanks for the answer. Roughly, I suppose that one would use glob to check the file (fail or not)? But not sure how to 'reqeue' the jobs.

Can you give a simple example how would one do the above step as you suggested?

Regards,
Edward

the best way to check if a file exists is with the -f operator (it is documented in perlfunc).

To requeue a job, you would need to run the corresponding qsub command again, ensure that you delete the "fail" file first with unlink.

Hi monkfan, Can you share how the code worked? I'd like to try out a variation on a 32 proc cluster in a classroom environment. Thanks! vanallp