bash shell - problem assigning expression to variable

[stou]

Hi guys

I am having some troubles to get my bash script working. Process assigned to that script stop as soon as I start it.
After some tests, I identify that something wrong is happening into following lines :

 USR=$(top -d1 -n2 | grep 'Cpu(s)' | tail -1 | sed -e 's/\s\+/ /g' | cut -d' ' -f 2 | cut -d'%' -f 1 | cut -d'.' -f 1)
 SYS=$(top -d1 -n2 | grep 'Cpu(s)' | tail -1 | sed -e 's/\s\+/ /g' | cut -d' ' -f 3 | cut -d'%' -f 1 | cut -d'.' -f 1)


 ALL=$(($USR+$SYS))
 echo $ALL | tr '[ \n]' '-' >> stat.log

I try to assign to variables USR and SYS some expressions. I think that my syntax is correct but at the end it is not working.

It tried that way too :

 USR=`top -d1 -n2 | grep 'Cpu(s)' | tail -1 | sed -e 's/\s\+/ /g' | cut -d' ' -f 2 | cut -d'%' -f 1 | cut -d'.' -f 1`
 SYS=`top -d1 -n2 | grep 'Cpu(s)' | tail -1 | sed -e 's/\s\+/ /g' | cut -d' ' -f 3 | cut -d'%' -f 1 | cut -d'.' -f 1`

But result is the same.

Does somebody have an idea what I am doing wrong here?
I suspect an issue with some wrong quotes used but after some search I don't find any solution...



UPDATE 19/05 :
The script is basically running when I start it on the current thread :

 
stou@laptop:~/$ sh read_stats.sh

But my problem is when I start it on another thread to let it work in background. It stops as soon as I tip another command (or just press ENTER) in shell :

 
stou@laptop:~/$ sh read_stats.sh &
[1] 4473
stou@laptop:~/$
[1]+  Stopped          sh read_stats.sh
stou@laptop:~/$

[cortman]

One problem you have is with using the variable $USER. That it is a system reserved variable, for printing the name of the current (you guessed it) user. Rename the variable $USR or something else.
Might be a good idea to check with printenv to make sure you're not trying to overwrite any environment variables.

[stou]

Hi cortman,

Thanks for your tip
It's kind of a stupid issue... So I changed USER variable to USR (and checked with printenv for other potentially reserved variable names I maybe override).

Unfortunately the result is the same with this new variable name...

Does anyone has another idea?

(I updated my initial message as I got some others informations during my tests)

[steeldriver]

It's difficult to tell from just the fragment you provided, but I think the problem is possibly not the variable assignment, but that 'top' doesn't like running without an interactive shell e.g.

$ top > top.out &
[3] 16383
$ 

[3]+  Stopped                 top > top.out
$ kill 16383 
$ ls -l top.out
-rw-rw-r-- 1 steeldriver steeldriver 0 May 19 07:30 top.out

You can try giving the -b (batch mode) flag to top e.g.

$ top -b > top.out &
[4] 16391
$ 
$ kill 16391
$ 
[4]-  Exit 143                top -b > top.out
$ ls -l top.out
-rw-rw-r-- 1 steeldriver steeldriver 62071 May 19 07:32 top.out
$

[prodigy_]

 USR=$(top -d1 -n2 | grep 'Cpu(s)' | tail -1 | sed -e 's/\s\+/ /g' | cut -d' ' -f 2 | cut -d'%' -f 1 | cut -d'.' -f 1)
 SYS=$(top -d1 -n2 | grep 'Cpu(s)' | tail -1 | sed -e 's/\s\+/ /g' | cut -d' ' -f 3 | cut -d'%' -f 1 | cut -d'.' -f 1)
 ALL=$(($USR+$SYS))

^ Are you trying to get the integer part of us and sy here? Well, how about:

cpu_usage=$(top -d1 -n2 | grep 'Cpu(s)' | tail -1)
cpu_sys_usr=$(echo ${cpu_usage#* } | awk -F'[,. ]' '{ print $1, "+", $4 }')
cpu_all=$(expr $cpu_sys_usr)

then?

Re. your script as a whole, I have a gut feeling that you're trying to reinvent nice or time. And you probably shouldn't do that. :)

[schragge]

SYS=$(top -d1 -n2 | grep 'Cpu(s)' | tail -1 | sed -e 's/\s\+/ /g' | cut -d' ' -f 3 | cut -d'%' -f 1 | cut -d'.' -f 1)

The 3 there most probably should be 4.

But I'd rather parse the output of vmstat

cpu_all=$(vmstat 1 2|awk 'NR>3{print $13+$14}')

[Vaphell]

as for all-caps names - simply don't use them. There is a boatload of env variables that are all-caps by convention. I've seen someone override PATH, long story short the results were not pretty (all commands stopped to work because shell couldn't locate them anymore). Have at least 1 lowercase char and you won't risk overriding them ever again.

[cortman]

It is also often useful to run a script in debugging mode, with the -x option.

[stou]

Hi guys

Thanks a lot for your answers!
My original problem here was what @steeldriver pointed out : I used top command not in batch mode.
Then I tried with -d option. It is working but it seems not very proper in my case as I want to launch a shell script and let it run for a long period (logging some statistics over cpu, memory and network use). Top outputs seems not very stable to parse.

I will rather use the vmstat command outputs like @schragge advised. I didn't know that command

Unfortunately to run the script in debugging mode was not useful in my case because that was not a syntax or logic problem but an execution issue (top not working normally when I started the script in background). Is it possible to start a background process in debugging mode?

@Vaphell I am already following your advice -> no more all-caps variable names in my shell scripts!

You can turn that thread as solved, thanks guys!