Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I have a requirement for my web site that the perl programs be run in batch, rather than when user clicks a button.

Is it possible to schedule the programs to run at certain time or intervals without user's interaction. These programs would read certain files, generate reports and send mail to users. I am certain there is a way.

Thanks for you help!
Kishore.

  • Comment on Can perl programs be scheduled to run in batch?

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Re: Can perl programs be scheduled to run in batch?
by sauoq (Abbot) on Jul 29, 2003 at 19:32 UTC

    This isn't really a Perl question. It's also OS dependent. If you are on a unixish platform, you should read crontab(5). I can't help you if you are on Windows, but I'm sure someone else can.

    -sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";
[reply]
      cygwin has a good windows port of cron.
[reply]
      on windows the AT-command can be used.
[reply]
Re: Can perl programs be scheduled to run in batch?
by dragonchild (Archbishop) on Jul 29, 2003 at 19:32 UTC
    If you're on a unix system, look at cron.

    The basics of scheduling are as such:

    1. Define a schedule and put it into some storage mechanism. (RDBMS's are usually used for this.)
    2. A process every so often (usually, every second or minute) checks this storage mechanism and launches every action that should be taken at the time of checking.
    That's the whole of scheduling. *shrugs* Of course, getting it done correctly is why my current employer has purchased a million+ dollar system that doesn't do much more than what I described above. :-)

    ------
    We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

    Don't go borrowing trouble. For programmers, this means Worry only about what you need to implement.

    Please remember that I'm crufty and crochety. All opinions are purely mine and all code is untested, unless otherwise specified.

[reply]
Re: Can perl programs be scheduled to run in batch?
by Anonymous Monk on Jul 29, 2003 at 20:26 UTC
    Thanks!
    That helps.

    Kishore.

[reply]
      for windows servers you may be able to do it w/ a scheduled task, but I don't know if it runs like a cronjob.
[reply]
        Scheduled tasks in the Windows environment will do this, but I personally have found them a touch flakey to get set up. But once you get used to some of the syntax in question, they are pretty straightforward. I prefer crontab, but both are better than using the batch queue under OpenVMS :-)

        "Ex libris un peut de tout"
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