proto(F)                      06 January 1993                       proto(F)


 Name

    proto  - prototype job file for at, cron and batch

 Format

    See the file /usr/lib/cron/.proto

 Description

    When a job is submitted to at(C) or batch, the job is constructed as a
    shell script.  First, a prologue is constructed, consisting of:

    +  A header whether the job is an at job or a batch job (actually, at
       jobs submitted to all queues other than queue a, not just to the batch
       queue b, are listed as batch jobs); the header will be:

       : at job

       for an at job, and

       : batch job

       for a batch job.

    +  A set of Bourne shell commands to make the environment (see
       environ(M)) for the at job the same as the current environment;

    +  A command to run the user's shell (as specified by the SHELL environ-
       ment variable) with the rest of the job file as input.

    at then reads a ``prototype file'' and constructs the rest of the job
    file from it.

    Text from the prototype file is copied to the job file, except for spe-
    cial ``variables'' that are replaced by other text:

       $d   is replaced by the current working directory

       $l   is replaced by the current file size limit (see ulimit(S))

       $m   is replaced by the current umask (see umask(S))

       $t   is replaced by the time at which the job should be run, expressed
            as seconds since January 1, 1970, 00:00 Greenwich Mean Time, pre-
            ceded by a colon

       $<   is replaced by text read by at from the standard input (that is,
            the commands provided to at to be run in the job)

    If the job is submitted in queue queue, at uses the file
    /usr/lib/cron/.proto.queue as the prototype file if it exists; otherwise
    it will use the file /usr/lib/cron/.proto.

 Examples

    The standard .proto file supplied is:

       #ident  "@(#)adm:.proto 1.2"
       cd $d
       ulimit $l
       umask $m
       $<

    This causes the values in the job of the current directory, the file size
    limit, and umask(C) to be changed to the values that were current when at
    or batch was invoked.  The commands to do this are inserted before the
    job commands.

 Files

    /usr/lib/cron/.proto      standard prototype job file
    /usr/lib/cron/.proto.a    prototype at(C) job file
    /usr/lib/cron/.proto.b    prototype batch (see at(C)) job file

 See also

    at(C), atcronsh(ADM), queuedefs(F), sysadmsh(ADM)