Running Stacks in the Background

In normal stack operation sm_script will open a window, that allows you to abort in a controlled way. However sometimes it may be necessary to run a stack in the background, where we have to dispense with this widget. 2 cases come to mind:

• You want the stack to start automatically at some later time. Type:

      % at hh:mm
    

• You start the stack logged onto the client computer from some remote location, and don't want to keep up the internet connection for hours. Type:

      % at now
     

  Then at the prompt type:

      at> start_stack
      at> Ctrl-D
  

start_stack is a short shell script, which starts an IDL session running sm_script in the background.

If you now want to abort the stack prematurely, you have to edit the file sm_script.abort with the desired abort flag:

  0: keep going
  1: restart from beginning
  2: restart from last start
  3: restart form current position

A fast way of doing this is:

  % echo flag > sm_script.abort

This also works, if the stack is running in the foreground. (Let's say you want to abort it logged in from some remote machine for example.)
The stacks output, which is normally written to the IDL session, you can find in the file sm_script.log.