Some basic question about the run() command

General Usage
#1

Questions:

  1. Solved! Is it possible to run an external cmd in background?

run(`sleep 10`)

works, but not

run(`sleep 10 \&`)

  1. In my docu run() is shown as

run(command, args…)
Run a command object, constructed with backticks. Throws an error if anything goes wrong, including the process exiting with a non-zero status.

How to use the comma separated syntax?

cmd = `kill`
run(cmd,12452 5467)

does not work.

  1. Solved! How to pass arguments correct over?

If I like to stop several processes

run(`kill 12452 5467`)

works fine. But if I generate a string of pids and try

string = “12452 5467”
run(`kill $string`)

is not working. Although if I pass Integers over

s1 = 12452
s2 = 5467
run(`kill $s1 $s2`)

it works. So how create an object which contains several integers and is accepted as argument?
Ah, try a tuple

stuple = tuple(12452,5467)

this works.

  1. Solved! If an external cmd fails and exit with error code 1 is

try
run()
catch

the only possibility to react on it? Or how else? Or how can I get back an empty string result?

Thx for any hints. Your help is very welcome as always.

1 Like
#2

Look at the output:

julia> string = "12452 5467"
"12452 5467"

julia> `kill $string`
`kill '12452 5467'`

julia> s1 = 12452;  s2 = 5467;

julia> `kill $s1 $s2`
`kill 12452 5467`

Use success

4 Likes
#3

In Julia 0.7:

run(`sleep 10`, wait=false)

In Julia 0.6 it is spelled spawn(`sleep 10`). You can wait on the result with wait if you want. You can also run commands in asynchronous tasks (green threads) with @async. Julia has good support for asynchronous I/O of all kinds.

2 Likes
#4

Thx for answering!

Over the spawn() function I found ignorestatus() which can be a solution too for question nr 4.

Therefore only question 2. remains open :wink:

#5

Can someone explain the run syntax found in the Docs under

https://docs.julialang.org/en/stable/stdlib/base/#Base.run

with an example showing that syntax. Sorry, but I maybe misunderstand it.

#6

See https://docs.julialang.org/en/stable/manual/running-external-programs/

The older blog post https://julialang.org/blog/2013/04/put-this-in-your-pipe is still helpful though some of the syntax has changed slightly and https://julialang.org/blog/2012/03/shelling-out-sucks is good to read for the for rationale behind Julia’s approach.