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From: Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell
Subject: Re: How to do non-blocked I/O?
Message-ID: <1991Jun12.015942.27003@cbfsb.att.com>
Date: 12 Jun 91 01:59:42 GMT
References: <1991Jun5.114741.8167@aucs.AcadiaU.ca> <1991Jun10.021626.27188@cbnewse.att.com>
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Originator: danj1@cbnewsf.cb.att.com

>>>>> "Peter" == Peter Steele <peter@aucs.acadiau.ca> writes:

Peter> I want to modify our system startup scripts to ask a question like

Peter>     Okay to bring up databases (y/n)?

Peter> and if there is no reply within, say 5 seconds, assume "y". Can
Peter> I do this from sh or csh

Most major dudes [<- Steely Dan musical reference there] frown upon
csh, so that leaves sh.  This works in ksh & sh, so it probably works
in bash too (note SYS Vish "\c" for echo though... no big deal)

#just examples
program="screen -r || screen" #maybe set this in a case statement

test -n "$program" &&
	sec=8 &&
	trap 'trap 2' 2 &&
	echo "you got $sec seconds to interrupt before
		\"$program\"... \c" &&
	sleep $sec &&
	trap 2 &&
	eval $program