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Execute a command at a given time

Terminal - Execute a command at a given time
echo "ls -l" | at midnight
2009-01-25 21:07:42
User: root
Functions: at echo
96
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Execute a command at a given time

This is an alternative to cron which allows a one-off task to be scheduled for a certain time.

Add to favourites | Report as malicious

Know a better way?

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What others think

Good work - this is exactly what I've been looking for.

Comment by bazza 59 weeks ago

Unfortunatly, nothing will be printed to the screen... you have to redirect the output to the current tty in order to see something :

echo "ls -l" >$(tty)| at midnight

it's only for the output of course

Comment by mrttlemonde 53 weeks ago

Bravura! bravura! bravura!

Comment by Sonny 52 weeks and 4 days ago

mrttlemonde, your command is not exactly right with the quotes, i.e. it should be something like:

echo "ls -l >/dev/pts/3" |at 23:59

or we could also direct to a file:

echo "ls -lah >/foo/bar/ls.txt" |at 07:00
Comment by Buzzcp 47 weeks and 1 day ago

Thats Cool!!

Comment by gandulo 43 weeks and 6 days ago

echo overload! :-)

Comment by mpb 38 weeks and 1 day ago

less-than less-than less-than "ls -l" at midnight

(where "less-than less-than less-than" is three less than symbols (these get "eaten" by commandlinefu text entry )

Comment by mpb 38 weeks and 1 day ago

Is there any way to make it work with, say... mplayer ? :)

Comment by sitaktif 36 weeks and 5 days ago

This is cool...

Comment by bakhru 13 weeks and 5 days ago

Be aware that the "at" command has a very important restriction. From the man page: "At and batch as presently implemented are not suitable when users are competing for resources." In other words, if your system is under a heavy load when the time comes to execute your "at" command, then your task might not run at all.

Some might see this as a feature, since it cuts down on time-release tasks when the system load is high, but in my case it caused an important set of overnight tests to mysteriously stop running. These days I use cron, which is less sensitive to system loads. I've also read good things about nqs (indeed, the "at" man page suggests it as an alternative), but haven't tried it.

Comment by willdye 5 weeks and 5 days ago

Your point of view

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