Running Calibre in background by skill

hi,

I writing a skill that runs Calibre automatically.
I fill my options files automatically and then i run Calibre by
command:
csh(Com)
where Com = strcat("calibre" ...)


It works fine but i'm facing a problem. During the execution of the
command, Cadence is frozen and i have to wait ... i can't work during
this time.

So i tried to add "&" in my command :

Com = strcat("calibre" ... "&")
csh(Com)

In this case, the skill program is continuing but behavior of my skill
program is not as expected !


So i found an old topic about asynchronous code:


procedure(MYdataHandler(ipcId data)
printf("%s" data)
)

procedure(MYexitHandler(ipcId exitStatus)
printf("Process %L exited with status %d\n" ipcId exitStatus)
)

id=ipcBeginProcess("ls" "" 'MYdataHandler 'MYdataHandler
'MYexitHandler)


But i don't understand how it works and how to modify it to fit my
code.

could someone help me please ?

Thanks and regards,

b.

 

bedoune,

Check out the IPC reference manual, doc/skipcref/skipcref.pdf, it's
not bad and has trivial examples like you want.

To do the equivalent of your simple "csh(Com)", you want to
use ipcBatchProcess(), not ipcBeginProcess().

Using your same command string Com, you would do something
like:

ipcBatchProcess(Com "" "./calibre.log")

There's no error checking there, or results notification, but you
weren't doing any before, either!

-Jay-

 

Hi There !

If I well understood your description, you don't seem to be interested
in communicating with your child process (calibre). i,e, you're
running Calibre in the background and let your skill running
regardless whether calibre succeeded to run or not. So if you don't
bother about communicating with your child process, why do you want to
use the ipc functions ? I'm pretty much sure I'm missing something :-(

I would advice the following in your case (This is an example):
; Print your calibre command into a string : calibreCommand
sprintf(calibreCommand "/yourMgcInstallDir/bin/calibre -drc -hier -
whateverOptionOrCtrlFile %s/%s.gds &" dirName cellName)
system(calibreCommand)

Anyway, This a little example about using IPCs

;-----------------------------------------------------------------
; Get The user name from unix
cidUser = ipcBeginProcess("whoami")
ipcWait(cidUser)
ridUser=car(parseString(ipcReadProcess(cidUser) "\n"))

; Get The hostname from unix
cidHost = ipcBeginProcess("uname -n")
ipcWait(cidHost)
ridHost=car(parseString(ipcReadProcess(cidHost) "\n"))
;-----------------------------------------------------------------

I saw you are using csh() to run your Calibre and I guess it is for a
purpose. In the case you move to ipc, you have to know that 'ipc' is
not running commands under your default login shell even if the
commands are passed through it, ipcBeginProcess executes commands
using Bourne Shell (sh).

BTW : What does it mean "... but behavior of my skill program is not
as expected ! "

Hope this help you !

Interesting and Could be useful :
Interprocess Communication SKILL Functions Reference -->
$CDSHOME/doc/skipcref.pdf

Riad.

 

Riad KACED wrote, on 05/08/08 00:31:

My guess is that he needs to know when it's finished - to do some further
processing - but doesn't want the session to block.

So something like:

procedure(MYexitHandler(cid status)
... do the things you want to do when Calibre has finished ...
)

; just to print any output from the command to the CIW
procedure(MYdataHandler(cid data)
printf("%s" data)
)

ipcBeginProcess("calibre ..." "" 'MYdataHandler 'MYdataHandler 'MYexitHandler)

For every bit of output that the calibre command produces, it will call the data
handler and print it. This happens asynchronously, so it doesn't block DFII.
When the child process exits, the MYexitHandler function will get called, and
then you can execute any further SKILL code you need - safe in the knowledge
that the calibre job exited.

Regards,

Andrew.

 

hi,
sorry, i'm late to asnwer but i was on holidays

Minna-san, thanks a lot for your answers. I will try the code you sent
me

@Riad: What i mean by "behaviour is not as expected" is that in my
program, after Calibre execution, i open the result files... if i put
a "&", my program tries to open result files before their creation. So
i get some error messages...

thanks and regards,

b.

 

Yes of course, that's a normal behaviour when you run your process in
the Background.
You definitely need to use the ipc functions as I mentioned before or
as advised by Andrew.

Riad.

 

Hello

I restart to fight with my program ^^

the solution proposed by Andrew works fine (arigatou Andrew-san!)
but it does not work for all unix command ?

I mean, before running my command "Calibre ..." i need to run a setup
script, by sourcing it. if i don't source it, calibre doesn't run.

so my full command is : "source Myfile ; Calibre ..."

I realized that ipcBeginProcess runs command like "sh" command. I can
not source any file with ipcBeginProcess nor sh.

That's why, initially, i used the command "csh()" to execute my batch
of commands (but freezes dfII during execution).

So i tried things like :

Com = "csh | source myfile && calibre ..."
ipcBeginProcess(Com ...)

or

Com = "csh ; source myfile ; calibre ..."
ipcBeginProcess(Com ...)


do you have an idea on how to source my file, run calibre and using
ipc at the same time ??

thanks a lot for your help.

regards,

b.

 

Use

Com="csh -c 'source myfile ; calibre ...'"

Andrew.