> I am thinking that these programs probably do nt need to run > continuously anyway. > > i assume they are doing something like: > > begin > poll sensor > write data > sleep x minutes > again > > would it be better to rewrite the program to just do: > > begin > poll sensor > write data > end > > then let cron do the scheduling every x minutes. that way as long as > cron is running, your data collection program should run. if the data > collection program outputs a value indicating whether or not it has > finished successfuly, you can get cron to send you an email on failure. > > just another option...
Nice idea. The temperature sensor could work like that, but it has its own scheduling built-in (just provide the interval at the command line), and I have set it up for every 5 minutes. The wind sensor is outputting data every three seconds. My Perl script accumulates this data over 10 minutes and outputs the average and max values, so it really needs to be running all the time. Thanks, Andy
