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

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.1‐2008,   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.1‐2008, Chapter 8, Environment Variables

COPYRIGHT

       Portions of this text are reprinted and  reproduced  in  electronic  form  from  IEEE  Std
       1003.1,  2013  Edition,  Standard  for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System
       Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013  by  the
       Institute  of  Electrical  and  Electronics  Engineers,  Inc and The Open Group.  (This is
       POSIX.1-2008 with the  2013  Technical  Corrigendum  1  applied.)  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.unix.org/online.html .

       Any  typographical  or  formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have
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