I'm assuming that you are basically implementing a spooler that has files copied to it from remote workstations, and need to use files to communicate. Can you arrange to have the remote workstations create a zero-length file print_file.lock that indicates to your script that something is still writing to print_file? Then your remote workstation can delete print_file.lock and the spooler can safely print the file.
Apart from the lsof suggestion from Roger you can also do a 'ls -l' and check that the file size hasn't changed for say 30 secs and then you can assume that the job is done (or the sending workstation has died :-() (There are also is a prebuilt fifo / named pipe listening utilities (can't find them now) that will execute a command when it is written to/from) Martin Martin Visser ,CISSP Network and Security Consultant Technology & Infrastructure - Consulting & Integration HP Services 3 Richardson Place North Ryde, Sydney NSW 2113, Australia Phone: +61-2-9022-1670��� Mobile: +61-411-254-513 Fax: +61-2-9022-1800���� E-mail: martin.visserAThp.com > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Peter Chubb > Sent: Friday, 5 March 2004 3:44 PM > To: Lyle Chapman > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [SLUG] Print Script > > >>>>> "Lyle" == Lyle Chapman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Lyle> Can anyone help? I have a print script in bash that monitors a > Lyle> certain folder, when that folder is populated with a postscript > Lyle> file it is converted to a pdf and then printed to a selected > Lyle> printer. > > Why not get whatever is generating the postscript to pipe > directly to lpr instead? Only the generating program can be > sure that it's finished -- even ls -l and waiting for the > size to stop increasing isn't guaranteed to work. > > Peter C > -- > SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - > http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: > http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html > -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
