Friends, Thank you for thinking on this topic. Please allow me to make a related observation.
Remember the more direct user that puts the max number of parallel jobs into a file and changes that value over time. echo 10 > job_count parallel -j ./job_count COMMAND :::: BIG-WORK-LIST # while parallel is working, I want the load to go down echo 1 > job_count # now I will go to a meeting that will last about an hour, computer will be unused so increase jobs echo 10 > job_count; sleep 1h; echo 1 > job_count 1 is the minimum parallel job count. I always thought you could make a case for 0 to have parallel "freeze" new work. # I want parallel to stop new jobs for a while so no new load is taken up echo 0 > job_count; Right now "0" does something else. Consider echo stop > job_count echo -1 > job_count Sorry to interrupt the current thought process... Thanks! John
