Question

A frequent problem I encounter is having to run some script with 50 or so different parameterizations. In the old days, I’d write something like (e.g.)

for i in `seq 1 50`
do
    ./myscript $i
done

In the modern era though, all my machines can handle 4 or 8 threads at once. The scripts aren’t multithreaded, so what I want to be able to do is run 4 or 8 parameterizations at a time, and to automatically start new jobs as the old ones finish. I can rig up a haphazard system myself (and have in the past), but I suspect that there must be a linux utility that does this already. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

GNU parallel does this. With it, your example becomes:

parallel ./myscript -- `seq 1 50`