Adding a while loop to my script

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I have a script below that goes to the given directory and plays the newest powerpoint presentation via powerpoint viewer and wine.
So far it works perfectly but now Id like to add a while statement to essentially run

find /ticker/powerpointshare -mmin -1 -type f -iname "*.ppt"

and if it finds a file then execute the top half of my script again.

#! /bin/sh

# Start the newest Powerpoint presentation

# Change Directory to /ticker/powerpointshare
cd /ticker/powerpointshare

# Creates the variable newppt for use in this script
# ls -tr sorts the the ls output and pipes in into tail to grab the newest file 
newppt=$(ls -tr | tail -1)

echo This is the newest powerpoint presentation
echo $newppt
cd /ticker/powerpointshare

# We use wine to open the powerpoint presentation  with Powerpoint Viewer 2007
wine "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\PPTVIEW.EXE" /N $newppt

exit
2

How would it know when to stop? Wouldn't it just run powerpoint over and over?

3

I was thinking of killing the process if it finds something and regarding the powerpoint its meant to play in a loop until it finds a new powerpoint presentation

4

If you want infinity times, each ten seconds. I suposse your ppt has a limited duration and prompt automaticaly when finish.

#!/bin/ksh
while true
do
./your_script.sh o your code
sleep 10
done
5

Any idea why this script wont execute via cron on my ubuntu box?

6

The same reason lots of things don't run in crontab according to our FAQ, a much more minimal environment than you get from a login. Try setting PATH to a more complete value yourself, or sourcing /etc/profile

7

By full path do you mean that I should try to give it the full path to execute wine from the script above?

8

By PATH I mean the PATH variable, though the full path could also work.

Have you tried either of these?

It could also be that, without a proper login, it just can't access your X11 server. That may be required and would make sense; how is it supposed to work when your GUI isn't logged in, for instance?

9

No I havent tried it yet.
Is it even posssible to start the X11 server via CLI? If needed I could always do a

su - $user -c "/path/to/script/script.sh
10

I'm not convinced launching a process which uses X even makes sense until you've already logged into X. It ought to be launched by a process created by X, as well. Perhaps you could put /path/to/script.sh & in your ~/.xinitrc