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I'm running many programs (all written in fortran). Right now I'm running one program (./first) but I would like that once it is finished another one starts running (./second), and once that other program finishes the next one starts (./third) and so on. Any idea how can I do that from the terminal? Thanks!

Fresher
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user3412058
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2 Answers2

7

how about 

./first && ./second && ./third

or 

./first ; ./second ; ./third

in the first case, the chain is interrupted, if one of the programs fails (exits with exit code != 0). in the second case, the applications keep on running, even if one of them (e.g. ./second) is going to fail.

Pavel
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    Note the corollary: if you are writing the programs, then you are responsible for making sure that your program correctly returns 0 when it is successful, and non-zero when it fails. – William Pursell May 09 '14 at 13:08
  • But what if the first program is already running? – user3412058 May 09 '14 at 13:45
  • then I guess there's no nice way to do that, other than having a while-true-loop grepping for the PID of the running process and waiting to start the next one. generally, I'd recommend using shell scripts taking care of things like that. – Pavel May 09 '14 at 13:47
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    It can be done, see my answer. – nobody May 18 '14 at 04:13
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Assuming you're using bash or a compatible shell:

  1. Put first in the background by pressing Ctrl-Z (not necessary if it's already backgrounded)
  2. Run wait && ./second && ./third
nobody
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