[launchd-dev] Cross-job coalescing

[Kevin Van Vechten]

On Dec 4, 2007, at 7:55 PM, Jeremy Reichman wrote:

> I haven't found a way to do this after looking over the docs (but  
> not the
> new TechNote) ... I am wondering if there is a way to have two or more
> launchd tasks that call the same script coalesce into the same event  
> during
> events like wake from sleep.
>
> For example, what if the same script is called by both a nightly  
> job, and a
> weekly job? Are the various instances of the jobs that would have run
> automatically then coalesced into one instance if their scheduled  
> execution
> is missed?
>
> Or, if not, is there a way to have some other cross-job identifier  
> that is
> shared by multiple launchd jobs so that the same target script is  
> not run
> more than once?

Launchd does not run multiple instances of the same job.  Instead each  
of the criteria listed in the launchd plist is a reason to start the  
job only if the job is not already running.

StartCalendarInterval supports an array of dictionaries -- you could  
specify both a nightly time and a weekly time in the same plist,  
either one of which will cause the job to be run, but not twice when  
the nightly and weekly times coincide.

- Kevin