RE: option for performing dry run

[Cook, Malcolm]

As implemented, it seems to do what I've asked.  Thanks!

But....thinking about it a little more.... hmmmm....

You have many command line options.  Appreciating them all without having had 
to use them all is a small challenge....

I note that parallel by default is --silent and has option to be --verbose, 
which shows the command before executing.

GNU make, onthe other hand, by default is --verbose (it prints each command 
immediately before execution) and has option to be --silent which squelches 
this trace.

Assuming this is not going to change....

I think you might provide a flag to '--forgo' execution of the command, the 
'transfer' and/or the 'cleanup'.  Then allow -v to control what gets echoed to 
STDOUT.

This new flag would also control whether jobs are submitted to remote hosts.  
Also, if set, files would not be transferred but (if --verbose) the commands to 
effect the transfer ('rsync' etc) would be printed.

You _might_ call the flag --forgo (-f) with default value of 'all' but option 
to set it to one or more of 'transfer' 'return' 'cleanup'.

--dry-run is then equivilent to '--verbose --forgo all'

But, as it stands, I've tested --dry-run (without remote considerations) and it 
works as I requested.

Thanks!


Malcolm Cook
Stowers Institute for Medical Research -  Bioinformatics
Kansas City, Missouri  USA
 
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ole.tange@gmail.com [mailto:ole.tange@gmail.com] On 
> Behalf Of Ole Tange
> Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2010 3:10 AM
> To: Cook, Malcolm
> Cc: parallel@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: option for performing dry run
> 
> On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 11:12 PM, Cook, Malcolm 
> <MEC@stowers.org> wrote:
> >> > It would be great if parallel had an option to NOT execute
> >> the command
> >>
> >> Let me see if I understand you correctly. What you want is -p but 
> >> without printing '?...' and with the automatic answer 'n'.
> >
> > exactly
> 
> Please try the git version:
> 
> $ parallel --dry-run echo '>' /tmp/{} ::: a b c echo > /tmp/a 
> echo > /tmp/b echo > /tmp/c $ ls -l /tmp/?
> ls: cannot access /tmp/?: No such file or directory
> 
> 
> /Ole
>