shell script question

[macey]

Hello, I am no shell script expert but have been dabbling for some time.
I have a routine that I user for killing selected tasks:-

for i in `ps aux|grep  "vlc" |grep -v grep | awk '{print $1}' ` ; do
          kill -9 $i
          done

On my arm linux machine (Nokia N900)

ps aux|grep  "vlc" |grep -v grep

would typically return:-

19716 user     81648 S    /opt/VideoLAN/bin/vlc -I dummy --volume 120 http://name:password@localhost:9981/stream/channelid/60

Executing the kill code would kill task 19716 successfuly.

If I modify the code in any way to be more selective in killing my vlc task, sometihing like:-

for i in `ps aux|grep  "vlc -I dummy --volume 120 http://name:password@localhost:9981/stream/channelid" |grep -v grep | awk '{print $1}' ` ; do
          kill -9 $i
          done

ps aux|grep  "vlc -I dummy --volume 120 http://name:password@localhost:9981/stream/channelid" |grep -v grep

returns:-

19716 user     81648 S    /opt/VideoLAN/bin/vlc -I dummy --volume 120 http://name:password@localhost:9981/stream/channelid/60

But executing the modified "kill loop" code does not kill task 19716.

Anyone here able to tell me why?
I have changed the code in any number of ways to select just this type of vlc task, using grep "9981*, grep "stream"..... Only grep "vlc" seems to work.
I thought I knew how this code worked, very myserious!

[Lars Noodén]

There's a utility called pgrep. Does that do what you want? Note that there is also an option (-x) for exact matches not just patterns.

Or are you writing a whole script on principle?

[evilsoup]

I had a very similar function in my .bashrc, until I discovered that I could just use the commands 'killall' or 'pgrep'/'pkill'.

pkill -f 'vlc -I dummy --volume 120 http://name:password@localhost:9981/stream/channelid'

I'm not sure why you command actually breaks, though.

[macey]

I had a very similar function in my .bashrc, until I discovered that I could just use the commands 'killall' or 'pgrep'/'pkill'.

pkill -f 'vlc -I dummy --volume 120 http://name:password@localhost:9981/stream/channelid'

I'm not sure why you command actually breaks, though.

That does it , thanks.