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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.1‐2017, 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.

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 .