How to display a message for a few seconds only ?

[Harald Coeleveld]

$ xterm -e "cat message ; sleep 30"
Can't execvp cat message ; sleep 30

$ /bin/sh -c xterm -e "cat message ; sleep 30"
Doesn't work

In the latter, I don't know how to nest quotes and group commands / arguments properly.

I don't know how to display an announcement message for a limited amount of time and then continue the main script.

Grrr...this simple and straightforward request has taken me already about 4 hours of frustration. I love VB, I like Tcl, but I have a love/hate relationship with...

Nobody seems to be able to tell me what "execvp" means and why it does what it does(n't do)...

[harry d brown jr · Accepted solution]

/bin/sh -c 'xterm -e "echo HELLO WORLD;sleep 15"'

live free or die
harry

[Muthukumar_5]

xterm with -e can execute only one command. If you try to execute as,

xterm -e "cat message ; sleep 30"

xterm will try to run as,

execution of cat message ; sleep 30 can not be done.

Try as like as,

# cat > /tmp/test.ksh
cat message
sleep 30
# chmod +x /tmp/test.ksh
# export DISPLAY=ip:0
# xterm -e /tmp/test.ksh

It will do now

[Massimo Bianchi]

Hi,

man execvp

will answer.

As to your problem, try with some parenthesis:
xterm -e /usr/local/myscript.sh

where myscript.sh is
#!/sbin/sh
/usr/bin/cat message
/usr/bin/sleep 30
exit 0


I tested it on my system and it works.

Regards,
Massimo

[Massimo Bianchi]

Hi,
just forgetting one thing: check that the DISPLAY variable is properly set :)

Regards,
Massimo

[Franky_1]

Hi Harald,

you can do the following :

create a script (executable file) with the following content

echo hello
sleep 5

then set the DISPLAY Variable and run the script

xterm -e /tmp/<script_name>

Regards

Franky

[Franky_1]

Hi Harald,

did you try my solution ? It works ...

Regards

Franky

[Harald Coeleveld]

Got it !

Thanks guys for pointing out that ";" and "xterm -e" are not friends.

"The solution to a problem changes the problem"
- What if I want my message to appear in "pager" and users don't have to wait for the 'sleep' period to complete...

[harry d brown jr]

for no wait:

/bin/sh -c 'xterm -e "echo message;sleep 15"' &

live free or die
harry

[harry d brown jr]

should have added an exit:

/bin/sh -c 'xterm -e "echo message;sleep 15;exit"' &

live free or die
harry

[Gerard Leclercq]

There is a more elegant manner by using Xdialog (http://hpux.ee.ualberta.ca)

Example :

Xdialog --title "Message" --infoxbox "Write your message here" 0 0 30000&

Gerard