BATCH(1)                   POSIX Programmer's Manual                  BATCH(1)



PROLOG
       This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The OS
       implementation of this interface may differ (consult the corresponding
       OS manual page for details of OS behavior), or the interface may not be
       implemented on OS.

NAME
       batch -- schedule commands to be executed in a batch queue

SYNOPSIS
       batch

DESCRIPTION
       The batch utility shall read commands from standard input and schedule
       them for execution in a batch queue. It shall be the equivalent of the
       command:


           at -q b -m now

       where queue _b is a special at queue, specifically for batch jobs. Batch
       jobs shall be submitted to the batch queue with no time constraints and
       shall be run by the system using algorithms, based on unspecified
       factors, that may vary with each invocation of batch.

       Users shall be permitted to use batch if their name appears in the file
       at.allow which is located in an implementation-defined directory.  If
       that file does not exist, the file at.deny, which is located in an
       implementation-defined directory, shall be checked to determine whether
       the user shall be denied access to batch.  If neither file exists, only
       a process with appropriate privileges shall be allowed to submit a job.
       If only at.deny exists and is empty, global usage shall be permitted.
       The at.allow and at.deny files shall consist of one user name per line.

OPTIONS
       None.

OPERANDS
       None.

STDIN
       The standard input shall be a text file consisting of commands
       acceptable to the shell command language described in Chapter _2, Shell
       Command Language.

INPUT FILES
       The text files at.allow and at.deny, which are located in an
       implementation-defined directory, shall contain zero or more user
       names, one per line, of users who are, respectively, authorized or
       denied access to the at and batch utilities.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       The following environment variables shall affect the execution of
       batch:

       LANG      Provide a default value for the internationalization
                 variables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions
                 volume of POSIX.1-2017, Section 8.2, Internationalization
                 Variables for the precedence of internationalization
                 variables used to determine the values of locale categories.)

       LC__ALL    If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of
                 all the other internationalization variables.

       LC__CTYPE  Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of
                 bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as
                 opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments and input
                 files).

       LC__MESSAGES
                 Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format
                 and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error
                 and informative messages written to standard output.

       LC__TIME   Determine the format and contents for date and time strings
                 written by batch.

       NLSPATH   Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing
                 of LC__MESSAGES.

       SHELL     Determine the name of a command interpreter to be used to
                 invoke the at-job. If the variable is unset or null, sh shall
                 be used. If it is set to a value other than a name for sh,
                 the implementation shall do one of the following: use that
                 shell; use sh; use the login shell from the user database;
                 any of the preceding accompanied by a warning diagnostic
                 about which was chosen.

       TZ        Determine the timezone. The job shall be submitted for
                 execution at the time specified by timespec or -t time
                 relative to the timezone specified by the TZ variable. If
                 timespec specifies a timezone, it overrides TZ.  If timespec
                 does not specify a timezone and TZ is unset or null, an
                 unspecified default timezone shall be used.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
       Default.

STDOUT
       When standard input is a terminal, prompts of unspecified format for
       each line of the user input described in the STDIN section may be
       written to standard output.

STDERR
       The following shall be written to standard error when a job has been
       successfully submitted:


           "job %s at %s\n", at__job__id, <date>

       where date shall be equivalent in format to the output of:


           date +"%a %b %e %T %Y"

       The date and time written shall be adjusted so that they appear in the
       timezone of the user (as determined by the TZ variable).

       Neither this, nor warning messages concerning the selection of the
       command interpreter, are considered a diagnostic that changes the exit
       status.

       Diagnostic messages, if any, shall be written to standard error.

OUTPUT FILES
       None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
       None.

EXIT STATUS
       The following exit values shall be returned:

        0    Successful completion.

       >0    An error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
       The job shall not be scheduled.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE
       It may be useful to redirect standard output within the specified
       commands.

EXAMPLES
        1. This sequence can be used at a terminal:


               batch
               sort < file >outfile
               EOT

        2. This sequence, which demonstrates redirecting standard error to a
           pipe, is useful in a command procedure (the sequence of output
           redirection specifications is significant):


               batch <<!
               diff file1 file2 2>&1 >outfile | mailx mygroup
               !

RATIONALE
       Early proposals described batch in a manner totally separated from at,
       even though the historical model treated it almost as a synonym for at
       -qb.  A number of features were added to list and control batch work
       separately from those in at.  Upon further reflection, it was decided
       that the benefit of this did not merit the change to the historical
       interface.

       The -m option was included on the equivalent at command because it is
       historical practice to mail results to the submitter, even if all job-
       produced output is redirected. As explained in the RATIONALE for at,
       the now keyword submits the job for immediate execution (after
       scheduling delays), despite some historical systems where at now would
       have been considered an error.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS
       None.

SEE ALSO
       at

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1-2017, Chapter _8, Environment
       Variables

COPYRIGHT
       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
       from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information Technology --
       Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
       Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C) 2018 by the
       Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open
       Group.  In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the
       original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The
       Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can
       be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

       Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are
       most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source
       files to man page format. To report such errors, see
       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .



IEEE/The Open Group                  2017                             BATCH(1)
