buildit [-m] -l logfile command ...

DESCRIPTION

     The buildit command is a trivial wrapper script for running commands
     unattended.  buildit will start the given command using time(1); log the
     stdout and stderr of the command in the given logfile; wait for termina-
     tion of the command while printing its output on the terminal; and then
     optionally mail the head and tail of the logfile to the calling user.

     The date(1) command is called before and after the command so that there
     is a start and end date of the process in the logfile.

OPTIONS

     The options are as follows:

     -m           do not send mail when finished.

     -l logfile   log stdin and stderr to this logfile.  If the logfile
                  already exists, it is moved to logfile.old.

EXAMPLES

     Here are typical usages of the buildit command:

           buildit -l /var/src/install.out make installworld | whereintheworld

           buildit -l trace.log povray +iscene +oscene.out

DIAGNOSTICS

     Exit status is 0 on success, and 1 if the command fails for one of the
     following reasons:

     -l parameter mandatory  No logfile has been chosen.

COMPATIBILITY

     The mail(1) command is called to send email, with the -s flag to set the
     subject. This might not work equally on all systems.

SEE ALSO

     time(1), wait(1), head(1), tail(1), mail(1), date(1), kill(1),
     whereintheworld(8).

HISTORY

     The buildit manual page was first written for worldtools 1.2

AUTHORS

     The buildit command and this manual page were written by The Anarcat
     <anarcat@anarcat.ath.cx>.

BUGS

     buildit might leave stray processes running, even after being inter-
     rupted. This is due to a bug in sh since calling trap from a subshell has
     no effect. See the file test_trap.sh in the source distribution for an