Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-beacon!ora!jerry
From: jerry@ora.com (Jerry Peek)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: suspend process question
Summary: write pid to stdout when background program starts
Message-ID: <1991Feb6.163917.19663@ora.com>
Date: 6 Feb 91 16:39:17 GMT
References: <DAVIS.91Feb6023230@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu>
Organization: O'Reilly and Associates Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 22

davis@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu  (John E. Davis) writes:
>    I have a program running in the background ...
> I would like to be able to start and stop the program at will... I
> cannot do `stop %3' or whatever since the shell is not aware of the child...
>    What I currently do is to do `ps -aux | grep sline' (sline is the name of
> the program) to get the pid, `pid', then do `kill -STOP `pid'' ...
>    Is there an easier way???  How can I avoid getting the pid of the program
> via `ps -aux' ...

A while ago, I used a program called sysline(1) that updated the status
line.  It had a command line option that meant "write your PID to standard
output."  You could grab that number in a file at startup:
	# start sysline program; store its PID in "$HOME/.sysline.pid":
	sysline -D -l -p -i > ~/.sysline.pid

Then cat the file when you needed to send a signal.  I think I used an alias:
	alias usysline 'blah blah; kill -ALRM `cat ~/.sysline.pid`'

I also had another setup that worked on multiple terminals at once. 
It stored the PID in an environment variable, I think.  But you get the idea.

--Jerry Peek, O'Reilly & Associates Inc., jerry@ora.com