[linux] Repeat command automatically in Linux

If you want to avoid "drifting", meaning you want the command to execute every N seconds regardless of how long the command takes (assuming it takes less than N seconds), here's some bash that will repeat a command every 5 seconds with one-second accuracy (and will print out a warning if it can't keep up):

PERIOD=5

while [ 1 ]
do
    let lastup=`date +%s`
    # do command
    let diff=`date +%s`-$lastup
    if [ "$diff" -lt "$PERIOD" ]
    then
        sleep $(($PERIOD-$diff))
    elif [ "$diff" -gt "$PERIOD" ]
    then
        echo "Command took longer than iteration period of $PERIOD seconds!"
    fi
done

It may still drift a little since the sleep is only accurate to one second. You could improve this accuracy by creative use of the date command.

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