[launchd-dev] Documentation Suggestion

Geoff Franks gfranks at hwi.buffalo.edu
Tue Mar 4 14:46:46 PST 2008


On 3/4/08 5:36 PM, "Levi Brown" <levi at grokers.net> wrote:

> Hello all,
> 
> Reading the man entry for launchd.plist I read this:
> 
> StartInterval <integer>
>      This optional key causes the job to be started every N seconds.
> If the
>      system is asleep, the job will be started the next time the
> computer
>      wakes up.  If multiple intervals transpire before the computer is
> woken,
>      those events will be coalesced into one event upon wake from sleep.
> 
> Which, if I may suggest so, could be improved to be less ambiguous.
> Specifically, this does not tell the reader if the job will be started
> every N seconds, if it is already running or not.  Through
> experimentation I was able to discover that if the job is presently
> running when the interval expires, no new job will be initiated, and
> no queuing effect will occur either.  This happens to be the behavior /
> I/ wanted for my purposes, but the documentation is not clear on this
> matter and there is no mention of a way to allow spawning of multiple
> jobs should the intervals overlap, etc.
> 

I second this. I was trying to find the answer to this and ended up testing
it myself, after scouring the net and list archives with no answers.

Geoff Franks
Sr. Systems Administrator
Hauptman Woodward Institute



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