PARALLEL_ALTERNATIVES(7)

NAME
parallel_alternatives - Alternatives to GNU parallel

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GNU Parallel AND ALTERNATIVES
There are a lot programs with some of the functionality of GNU parallel. GNU parallel strives to include the best of the functionality without sacrificing ease of use.

  SUMMARY TABLE
The following features are in some of the comparable tools:

Inputs
 I1. Arguments can be read from stdin
 I2. Arguments can be read from a file
 I3. Arguments can be read from multiple files
 I4. Arguments can be read from command line
 I5. Arguments can be read from a table
 I6. Arguments can be read from the same file using #! (shebang)
 I7. Line oriented input as default (Quoting of special chars not needed)

Manipulation of input
 M1. Composed command
 M2. Multiple arguments can fill up an execution line
 M3. Arguments can be put anywhere in the execution line
 M4. Multiple arguments can be put anywhere in the execution line
 M5. Arguments can be replaced with context
 M6. Input can be treated as the complete command line

Outputs
 O1. Grouping output so output from different jobs do not mix
 O2. Send stderr (standard error) to stderr (standard error)
 O3. Send stdout (standard output) to stdout (standard output)
 O4. Order of output can be same as order of input
 O5. Stdout only contains stdout (standard output) from the command
 O6. Stderr only contains stderr (standard error) from the command

Execution
 E1. Running jobs in parallel
 E2. List running jobs
 E3. Finish running jobs, but do not start new jobs
 E4. Number of running jobs can depend on number of cpus
 E5. Finish running jobs, but do not start new jobs after first failure
 E6. Number of running jobs can be adjusted while running

Remote execution
 R1. Jobs can be run on remote computers
 R2. Basefiles can be transferred
 R3. Argument files can be transferred
 R4. Result files can be transferred
 R5. Cleanup of transferred files
 R6. No config files needed
 R7. Do not run more than SSHD's MaxStartups can handle
 R8. Configurable SSH command
 R9. Retry if connection breaks occasionally

Semaphore
 S1. Possibility to work as a mutex
 S2. Possibility to work as a counting semaphore

Legend
 - = no
 x = not applicable
 ID = yes

As every new version of the programs are not tested the table may be outdated. Please file a bug-report if you find errors (See REPORTING BUGS).

parallel: I1 I2 I3 I4 I5 I6 I7 M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 O1 O2 O3 O4 O5 O6 E1 E2 E3 E4 E5 E6 R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 S1 S2

xargs: I1 I2 - - - - - - M2 M3 - - - - O2 O3 - O5 O6 E1 - - - - - - - - - - x - - - - -

find -exec: - - - x - x - - M2 M3 - - - - - O2 O3 O4 O5 O6 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - x x

make -j: - - - - - - - - - - - - - O1 O2 O3 - x O6 E1 - - - E5 - - - - - - - - - - - -

ppss: I1 I2 - - - - I7 M1 - M3 - - M6 O1 - - x - - E1 E2 ?E3 E4 - - R1 R2 R3 R4 - - ?R7 ? ? - -

pexec: I1 I2 - I4 I5 - - M1 - M3 - - M6 O1 O2 O3 - O5 O6 E1 - - E4 - E6 R1 - - - - R6 - - - S1 -

xjobs, prll, dxargs, mdm/middelman, xapply, paexec, ladon, jobflow, ClusterSSH: TODO - Please file a bug-report if you know what features they support (See REPORTING BUGS).

  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN xargs AND GNU Parallel
xargs offers some of the same possibilities as GNU parallel.

xargs deals badly with special characters (such as space, \, ' and "). To see the problem try this:

  touch important_file
  touch 'not important_file'
  ls not* | xargs rm
  mkdir -p "My brother's 12\" records"
  ls | xargs rmdir
  touch 'c:\windows\system32\clfs.sys'
  echo 'c:\windows\system32\clfs.sys' | xargs ls -l

You can specify -0, but many input generators are not optimized for using NUL as separator but are optimized for newline as separator. E.g head, tail, awk, ls, echo, sed, tar -v, perl (-0 and \0 instead of \n), locate (requires using -0), find (requires using -print0), grep (requires user to use -z or -Z), sort (requires using -z).

GNU parallel's newline separation can be emulated with:

cat | xargs -d "\n" -n1 command

xargs can run a given number of jobs in parallel, but has no support for running number-of-cpu-cores jobs in parallel.

xargs has no support for grouping the output, therefore output may run together, e.g. the first half of a line is from one process and the last half of the line is from another process. The example Parallel grep cannot be done reliably with xargs because of this. To see this in action try:

  parallel perl -e '\$a=\"1{}\"x10000000\;print\ \$a,\"\\n\"' '>' {} \
    ::: a b c d e f
  ls -l a b c d e f
  parallel -kP4 -n1 grep 1 > out.par ::: a b c d e f
  echo a b c d e f | xargs -P4 -n1 grep 1 > out.xargs-unbuf
  echo a b c d e f | \
    xargs -P4 -n1 grep --line-buffered 1 > out.xargs-linebuf
  echo a b c d e f | xargs -n1 grep 1 > out.xargs-serial
  ls -l out*
  md5sum out*

xargs has no support for keeping the order of the output, therefore if running jobs in parallel using xargs the output of the second job cannot be postponed till the first job is done.

xargs has no support for running jobs on remote computers.

xargs has no support for context replace, so you will have to create the arguments.

If you use a replace string in xargs (-I) you can not force xargs to use more than one argument.

Quoting in xargs works like -q in GNU parallel. This means composed commands and redirection require using bash -c.

  ls | parallel "wc {} >{}.wc"
  ls | parallel "echo {}; ls {}|wc"

becomes (assuming you have 8 cores)

  ls | xargs -d "\n" -P8 -I {} bash -c "wc {} >{}.wc"
  ls | xargs -d "\n" -P8 -I {} bash -c "echo {}; ls {}|wc"

  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN find -exec AND GNU Parallel
find -exec offer some of the same possibilities as GNU parallel.

find -exec only works on files. So processing other input (such as hosts or URLs) will require creating these inputs as files. find -exec has no support for running commands in parallel.

  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN make -j AND GNU Parallel
make -j can run jobs in parallel, but requires a crafted Makefile to do this. That results in extra quoting to get filename containing newline to work correctly.

make -j computes a dependency graph before running jobs. Jobs run by GNU parallel does not depend on eachother.

(Very early versions of GNU parallel were coincidently implemented using make -j).

  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ppss AND GNU Parallel
ppss is also a tool for running jobs in parallel.

The output of ppss is status information and thus not useful for using as input for another command. The output from the jobs are put into files.

The argument replace string ($ITEM) cannot be changed. Arguments must be quoted - thus arguments containing special characters (space '"&!*) may cause problems. More than one argument is not supported. File names containing newlines are not processed correctly. When reading input from a file null cannot be used as a terminator. ppss needs to read the whole input file before starting any jobs.

Output and status information is stored in ppss_dir and thus requires cleanup when completed. If the dir is not removed before running ppss again it may cause nothing to happen as ppss thinks the task is already done. GNU parallel will normally not need cleaning up if running locally and will only need cleaning up if stopped abnormally and running remote (--cleanup may not complete if stopped abnormally). The example Parallel grep would require extra postprocessing if written using ppss.

For remote systems PPSS requires 3 steps: config, deploy, and start. GNU parallel only requires one step.

EXAMPLES FROM ppss MANUAL

Here are the examples from ppss's manual page with the equivalent using GNU parallel:

1 ./ppss.sh standalone -d /path/to/files -c 'gzip '

1 find /path/to/files -type f | parallel gzip

2 ./ppss.sh standalone -d /path/to/files -c 'cp "$ITEM" /destination/dir '

2 find /path/to/files -type f | parallel cp {} /destination/dir

3 ./ppss.sh standalone -f list-of-urls.txt -c 'wget -q '

3 parallel -a list-of-urls.txt wget -q

4 ./ppss.sh standalone -f list-of-urls.txt -c 'wget -q "$ITEM"'

4 parallel -a list-of-urls.txt wget -q {}

5 ./ppss config -C config.cfg -c 'encode.sh ' -d /source/dir -m 192.168.1.100 -u ppss -k ppss-key.key -S ./encode.sh -n nodes.txt -o /some/output/dir --upload --download ; ./ppss deploy -C config.cfg ; ./ppss start -C config

5 # parallel does not use configs. If you want a different username put it in nodes.txt: user@hostname

5 find source/dir -type f | parallel --sshloginfile nodes.txt --trc {.}.mp3 lame -a {} -o {.}.mp3 --preset standard --quiet

6 ./ppss stop -C config.cfg

6 killall -TERM parallel

7 ./ppss pause -C config.cfg

7 Press: CTRL-Z or killall -SIGTSTP parallel

8 ./ppss continue -C config.cfg

8 Enter: fg or killall -SIGCONT parallel

9 ./ppss.sh status -C config.cfg

9 killall -SIGUSR2 parallel

  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN pexec AND GNU Parallel
pexec is also a tool for running jobs in parallel.

EXAMPLES FROM pexec MANUAL

Here are the examples from pexec's info page with the equivalent using GNU parallel:

1 pexec -o sqrt-%s.dat -p "$(seq 10)" -e NUM -n 4 -c -- \
  'echo "scale=10000;sqrt($NUM)" | bc'

1 seq 10 | parallel -j4 'echo "scale=10000;sqrt({})" | bc > sqrt-{}.dat'

2 pexec -p "$(ls myfiles*.ext)" -i %s -o %s.sort -- sort

2 ls myfiles*.ext | parallel sort {} ">{}.sort"

3 pexec -f image.list -n auto -e B -u star.log -c -- \
  'fistar $B.fits -f 100 -F id,x,y,flux -o $B.star'

3 parallel -a image.list \
  'fistar {}.fits -f 100 -F id,x,y,flux -o {}.star' 2>star.log

4 pexec -r *.png -e IMG -c -o - -- \
  'convert $IMG ${IMG%.png}.jpeg ; "echo $IMG: done"'

4 ls *.png | parallel 'convert {} {.}.jpeg; echo {}: done'

5 pexec -r *.png -i %s -o %s.jpg -c 'pngtopnm | pnmtojpeg'

5 ls *.png | parallel 'pngtopnm < {} | pnmtojpeg > {}.jpg'

6 for p in *.png ; do echo ${p%.png} ; done | \
  pexec -f - -i %s.png -o %s.jpg -c 'pngtopnm | pnmtojpeg'

6 ls *.png | parallel 'pngtopnm < {} | pnmtojpeg > {.}.jpg'

7 LIST=$(for p in *.png ; do echo ${p%.png} ; done)
  pexec -r $LIST -i %s.png -o %s.jpg -c 'pngtopnm | pnmtojpeg'

7 ls *.png | parallel 'pngtopnm < {} | pnmtojpeg > {.}.jpg'

8 pexec -n 8 -r *.jpg -y unix -e IMG -c \
  'pexec -j -m blockread -d $IMG | \
  jpegtopnm | pnmscale 0.5 | pnmtojpeg | \
  pexec -j -m blockwrite -s th_$IMG'

8 Combining GNU parallel and GNU sem.

8 ls *jpg | parallel -j8 'sem --id blockread cat {} | jpegtopnm |' \
  'pnmscale 0.5 | pnmtojpeg | sem --id blockwrite cat > th_{}'

8 If reading and writing is done to the same disk, this may be faster as only one process will be either reading or writing:

8 ls *jpg | parallel -j8 'sem --id diskio cat {} | jpegtopnm |' \
  'pnmscale 0.5 | pnmtojpeg | sem --id diskio cat > th_{}'

  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN xjobs AND GNU Parallel
xjobs is also a tool for running jobs in parallel. It only supports running jobs on your local computer.

xjobs deals badly with special characters just like xargs. See the section DIFFERENCES BETWEEN xargs AND GNU Parallel.

Here are the examples from xjobs's man page with the equivalent using GNU parallel:

1 ls -1 *.zip | xjobs unzip

1 ls *.zip | parallel unzip

2 ls -1 *.zip | xjobs -n unzip

2 ls *.zip | parallel unzip >/dev/null

3 find . -name '*.bak' | xjobs gzip

3 find . -name '*.bak' | parallel gzip

4 ls -1 *.jar | sed 's/\(.*\)/\1 > \1.idx/' | xjobs jar tf

4 ls *.jar | parallel jar tf {} '>' {}.idx

5 xjobs -s script

5 cat script | parallel

6 mkfifo /var/run/my_named_pipe; xjobs -s /var/run/my_named_pipe & echo unzip 1.zip >> /var/run/my_named_pipe; echo tar cf /backup/myhome.tar /home/me >> /var/run/my_named_pipe

6 mkfifo /var/run/my_named_pipe; cat /var/run/my_named_pipe | parallel & echo unzip 1.zip >> /var/run/my_named_pipe; echo tar cf /backup/myhome.tar /home/me >> /var/run/my_named_pipe

  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN prll AND GNU Parallel
prll is also a tool for running jobs in parallel. It does not support running jobs on remote computers.

prll encourages using BASH aliases and BASH functions instead of scripts. GNU parallel supports scripts directly, functions if they are exported using export -f, and aliases if using env_parallel.

prll generates a lot of status information on stderr (standard error) which makes it harder to use the stderr (standard error) output of the job directly as input for another program.

Here is the example from prll's man page with the equivalent using GNU parallel:

  prll -s 'mogrify -flip $1' *.jpg
  parallel mogrify -flip ::: *.jpg

  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN dxargs AND GNU Parallel
dxargs is also a tool for running jobs in parallel.

dxargs does not deal well with more simultaneous jobs than SSHD's MaxStartups. dxargs is only built for remote run jobs, but does not support transferring of files.

  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN mdm/middleman AND GNU Parallel
middleman(mdm) is also a tool for running jobs in parallel.

Here are the shellscripts of http://mdm.berlios.de/usage.html ported to GNU parallel:

  seq 19 | parallel buffon -o - | sort -n > result
  cat files | parallel cmd
  find dir -execdir sem cmd {} \;

  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN xapply AND GNU Parallel
xapply can run jobs in parallel on the local computer.

Here are the examples from xapply's man page with the equivalent using GNU parallel:

1 xapply '(cd %1 && make all)' */

1 parallel 'cd {} && make all' ::: */

2 xapply -f 'diff %1 ../version5/%1' manifest | more

2 parallel diff {} ../version5/{} < manifest | more

3 xapply -p/dev/null -f 'diff %1 %2' manifest1 checklist1

3 parallel --link diff {1} {2} :::: manifest1 checklist1

4 xapply 'indent' *.c

4 parallel indent ::: *.c

5 find ~ksb/bin -type f ! -perm -111 -print | xapply -f -v 'chmod a+x' -

5 find ~ksb/bin -type f ! -perm -111 -print | parallel -v chmod a+x

6 find */ -... | fmt 960 1024 | xapply -f -i /dev/tty 'vi' -

6 sh <(find */ -... | parallel -s 1024 echo vi)

6 find */ -... | parallel -s 1024 -Xuj1 vi

7 find ... | xapply -f -5 -i /dev/tty 'vi' - - - - -

7 sh <(find ... |parallel -n5 echo vi)

7 find ... |parallel -n5 -uj1 vi

8 xapply -fn "" /etc/passwd

8 parallel -k echo < /etc/passwd

9 tr ':' '\012' < /etc/passwd | xapply -7 -nf 'chown %1 %6' - - - - - - -

9 tr ':' '\012' < /etc/passwd | parallel -N7 chown {1} {6}

10 xapply '[ -d %1/RCS ] || echo %1' */

10 parallel '[ -d {}/RCS ] || echo {}' ::: */

11 xapply -f '[ -f %1 ] && echo %1' List | ...

11 parallel '[ -f {} ] && echo {}' < List | ...

  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN AIX apply AND GNU Parallel
apply can build command lines based on a template and arguments - very much like GNU parallel. apply does not run jobs in parallel. apply does not use an argument separator (like :::); instead the template must be the first argument.

Here are the examples from https://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/ssw_aix_71/com.ibm.aix.cmds1/apply.htm

1. To obtain results similar to those of the ls command, enter:

  apply echo *
  parallel echo ::: *

2. To compare the file named a1 to the file named b1, and the file named a2 to the file named b2, enter:

  apply -2 cmp a1 b1 a2 b2
  parallel -N2 cmp ::: a1 b1 a2 b2

3. To run the who command five times, enter:

  apply -0 who 1 2 3 4 5
  parallel -N0 who ::: 1 2 3 4 5

4. To link all files in the current directory to the directory /usr/joe, enter:

  apply 'ln %1 /usr/joe' *
  parallel ln {} /usr/joe ::: *

  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN paexec AND GNU Parallel
paexec can run jobs in parallel on both the local and remote computers.

paexec requires commands to print a blank line as the last output. This means you will have to write a wrapper for most programs.

paexec has a job dependency facility so a job can depend on another job to be executed successfully. Sort of a poor-man's make.

Here are the examples from paexec's example catalog with the equivalent using GNU parallel:

1_div_X_run:
      ../../paexec -s -l -c "`pwd`/1_div_X_cmd" -n +1 <<EOF [...]
      parallel echo {} '|' `pwd`/1_div_X_cmd <<EOF [...]

all_substr_run:
      ../../paexec -lp -c "`pwd`/all_substr_cmd" -n +3 <<EOF [...]
      parallel echo {} '|' `pwd`/all_substr_cmd <<EOF [...]

cc_wrapper_run:
      ../../paexec -c "env CC=gcc CFLAGS=-O2 `pwd`/cc_wrapper_cmd" \
                 -n 'host1 host2' \
                 -t '/usr/bin/ssh -x' <<EOF [...]
      parallel echo {} '|' "env CC=gcc CFLAGS=-O2 `pwd`/cc_wrapper_cmd" \
                 -S host1,host2 <<EOF [...]
      # This is not exactly the same, but avoids the wrapper
      parallel gcc -O2 -c -o {.}.o {} \
                 -S host1,host2 <<EOF [...]

toupper_run:
      ../../paexec -lp -c "`pwd`/toupper_cmd" -n +10 <<EOF [...]
      parallel echo {} '|' ./toupper_cmd <<EOF [...]
      # Without the wrapper:
      parallel echo {} '| awk {print\ toupper\(\$0\)}' <<EOF [...]

  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN map AND GNU Parallel
map sees it as a feature to have less features and in doing so it also handles corner cases incorrectly. A lot of GNU parallel's code is to handle corner cases correctly on every platform, so you will not get a nasty surprise if a user for example saves a file called: My brother's 12" records.txt

map's example showing how to deal with special characters fails on special characters:

  echo "The Cure" > My\ brother\'s\ 12\"\ records

  ls | \
    map 'echo -n `gzip < "%" | wc -c`; echo -n '*100/'; wc -c < "%"' | bc

It works with GNU parallel:

  ls | \
    parallel 'echo -n `gzip < {} | wc -c`; echo -n '*100/'; wc -c < {}' | bc

And you can even get the file name prepended:

  ls | \
    parallel --tag '(echo -n `gzip < {} | wc -c`'*100/'; wc -c < {}) | bc'

map has no support for grouping. So this gives the wrong results without any warnings:

  parallel perl -e '\$a=\"1{}\"x10000000\;print\ \$a,\"\\n\"' '>' {} \
    ::: a b c d e f
  ls -l a b c d e f
  parallel -kP4 -n1 grep 1 > out.par ::: a b c d e f
  map -p 4 'grep 1' a b c d e f > out.map-unbuf
  map -p 4 'grep --line-buffered 1' a b c d e f > out.map-linebuf
  map -p 1 'grep --line-buffered 1' a b c d e f > out.map-serial
  ls -l out*
  md5sum out*

The documentation shows a workaround, but not only does that mix stdout (standard output) with stderr (standard error) it also fails completely for certain jobs (and may even be considered less readable):

  parallel echo -n {} ::: 1 2 3

  map -p 4 'echo -n % 2>&1 | sed -e "s/^/$$:/"' 1 2 3 | sort | cut -f2- -d:

maps replacement strings (% %D %B %E) can be simulated in GNU parallel by putting this in ~/.parallel/config:

  --rpl '%'
  --rpl '%D $_=::shell_quote(::dirname($_));'
  --rpl '%B s:.*/::;s:\.[^/.]+$::;'
  --rpl '%E s:.*\.::'

map cannot handle bundled options: map -vp 0 echo this fails

map does not have an argument separator on the command line, but uses the first argument as command. This makes quoting harder which again may affect readability. Compare:

  map -p 2 perl\\\ -ne\\\ \\\'/^\\\\S+\\\\s+\\\\S+\\\$/\\\ and\\\ print\\\ \\\$ARGV,\\\"\\\\n\\\"\\\' *

  parallel -q perl -ne '/^\S+\s+\S+$/ and print $ARGV,"\n"' ::: *

map can do multiple arguments with context replace, but not without context replace:

  parallel --xargs echo 'BEGIN{'{}'}END' ::: 1 2 3

map does not set exit value according to whether one of the jobs failed:

  parallel false ::: 1 || echo Job failed

  map false 1 || echo Never run

map requires Perl v5.10.0 making it harder to use on old systems.

map has no way of using % in the command (GNU Parallel has -I to specify another replacement string than {}).

By design map is option incompatible with xargs, it does not have remote job execution, a structured way of saving results, multiple input sources, progress indicator, configurable record delimiter (only field delimiter), logging of jobs run with possibility to resume, keeping the output in the same order as input, --pipe processing, and dynamically timeouts.

  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ladon AND GNU Parallel
ladon can run multiple jobs on files in parallel.

ladon only works on files and the only way to specify files is using a quoted glob string (such as \*.jpg). It is not possible to list the files manually.

As replacement strings it uses FULLPATH DIRNAME BASENAME EXT RELDIR RELPATH

These can be simulated using GNU parallel by putting this in ~/.parallel/config:

    --rpl 'FULLPATH $_=::shell_quote($_);chomp($_=qx{readlink -f $_});'
    --rpl 'DIRNAME $_=::shell_quote(::dirname($_));chomp($_=qx{readlink -f $_});'
    --rpl 'BASENAME s:.*/::;s:\.[^/.]+$::;'
    --rpl 'EXT s:.*\.::'
    --rpl 'RELDIR $_=::shell_quote($_);chomp(($_,$c)=qx{readlink -f $_;pwd});s:\Q$c/\E::;$_=::dirname($_);'
    --rpl 'RELPATH $_=::shell_quote($_);chomp(($_,$c)=qx{readlink -f $_;pwd});s:\Q$c/\E::;'

ladon deals badly with filenames containing " and newline, and it fails for output larger than 200k:

    ladon '*' -- seq 36000 | wc

EXAMPLES FROM ladon MANUAL

It is assumed that the '--rpl's above are put in ~/.parallel/config and that it is run under a shell that supports '**' globbing (such as zsh):

1 ladon "**/*.txt" -- echo RELPATH

1 parallel echo RELPATH ::: **/*.txt

2 ladon "~/Documents/**/*.pdf" -- shasum FULLPATH >hashes.txt

2 parallel shasum FULLPATH ::: ~/Documents/**/*.pdf >hashes.txt

3 ladon -m thumbs/RELDIR "**/*.jpg" -- convert FULLPATH -thumbnail 100x100^ -gravity center -extent 100x100 thumbs/RELPATH

3 parallel mkdir -p thumbs/RELDIR\; convert FULLPATH -thumbnail 100x100^ -gravity center -extent 100x100 thumbs/RELPATH ::: **/*.jpg

4 ladon "~/Music/*.wav" -- lame -V 2 FULLPATH DIRNAME/BASENAME.mp3

4 parallel lame -V 2 FULLPATH DIRNAME/BASENAME.mp3 ::: ~/Music/*.wav

  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN jobflow AND GNU Parallel
jobflow can run multiple jobs in parallel.

Just like xargs output from jobflow jobs running in parallel mix together by default. jobflow can buffer into files (placed in /run/shm), but these are not cleaned up - not even if jobflow dies unexpectently. If the total output is big (in the order of RAM+swap) it can cause the system to run out of memory.

jobflow gives no error if the command is unknown, and like xargs redirection requires wrapping with bash -c.

jobflow makes it possible to set ressource limits on the running jobs. This can be emulated by GNU parallel using bash's ulimit:

  jobflow -limits=mem=100M,cpu=3,fsize=20M,nofiles=300 myjob

  parallel 'ulimit -v 102400 -t 3 -f 204800 -n 300 myjob'

EXAMPLES FROM jobflow README

1 cat things.list | jobflow -threads=8 -exec ./mytask {}

1 cat things.list | parallel -j8 ./mytask {}

2 seq 100 | jobflow -threads=100 -exec echo {}

2 seq 100 | parallel -j100 echo {}

3 cat urls.txt | jobflow -threads=32 -exec wget {}

3 cat urls.txt | parallel -j32 wget {}

4 find . -name '*.bmp' | jobflow -threads=8 -exec bmp2jpeg {.}.bmp {.}.jpg

4 find . -name '*.bmp' | parallel -j8 bmp2jpeg {.}.bmp {.}.jpg

  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN gargs AND GNU Parallel
gargs can run multiple jobs in parallel.

It caches output in memory. This causes it to be extremely slow when the output is larger than the physical RAM, and can cause the system to run out of memory.

See more details on this in man parallel_design.

Output to stderr (standard error) is changed if the command fails.

Here are the two examples from gargs website.

1 seq 12 -1 1 | gargs -p 4 -n 3 "sleep {0}; echo {1} {2}"

1 seq 12 -1 1 | parallel -P 4 -n 3 "sleep {1}; echo {2} {3}"

2 cat t.txt | gargs --sep "\s+" -p 2 "echo '{0}:{1}-{2}' full-line: \'{}\'"

2 cat t.txt | parallel --colsep "\\s+" -P 2 "echo '{1}:{2}-{3}' full-line: \'{}\'"

  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN orgalorg AND GNU Parallel
orgalorg can run the same job on multiple machines. This is related to --onall and --nonall.

orgalorg supports entering the SSH password - provided it is the same for all servers. GNU parallel advocates using ssh-agent instead, but it is possible to emulate orgalorg's behavior by setting SSHPASS and by using --ssh "sshpass ssh".

To make the emulation easier, make a simple alias:

  alias par_emul="parallel -j0 --ssh 'sshpass ssh' --nonall --tag --linebuffer"

If you want to supply a password run:

  SSHPASS=`ssh-askpass`

or set the password directly:

  SSHPASS=P4$$w0rd!

If the above is set up you can then do:

  orgalorg -o frontend1 -o frontend2 -p -C uptime
  par_emul -S frontend1 -S frontend2 uptime

  orgalorg -o frontend1 -o frontend2 -p -C top -bid 1
  par_emul -S frontend1 -S frontend2 top -bid 1

  orgalorg -o frontend1 -o frontend2 -p -er /tmp -n 'md5sum /tmp/bigfile' -S bigfile
  par_emul -S frontend1 -S frontend2 --basefile bigfile --workdir /tmp  md5sum /tmp/bigfile

orgalorg has a progress indicator for the transferring of a file. GNU parallel does not.

  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN Rust parallel AND GNU Parallel
Rust parallel focuses on speed. It is almost as fast as xargs. It implements a few features from GNU parallel, but lacks many functions. All these fail:

  # Show what would be executed
  parallel --dry-run echo ::: a
  # Read arguments from file
  parallel -a file echo
  # Changing the delimiter
  parallel -d _ echo ::: a_b_c_

These do something different from GNU parallel

  # Read more arguments at a time -n
  parallel -n 2 echo ::: 1 a 2 b
  # -q to protect quoted $ and space
  parallel -q perl -e '$a=shift; print "$a"x10000000' ::: a b c
  # Generation of combination of inputs
  parallel echo {1} {2} ::: red green blue ::: S M L XL XXL
  # {= perl expression =} replacement string
  parallel echo '{= s/new/old/ =}' ::: my.new your.new
  # --pipe
  seq 100000 | parallel --pipe wc
  # linked arguments
  parallel echo ::: S M L :::+ small medium large ::: R G B :::+ red green blue
  # Run different shell dialects
  zsh -c 'parallel echo \={} ::: zsh && true'
  csh -c 'parallel echo \$\{\} ::: shell && true'
  bash -c 'parallel echo \$\({}\) ::: pwd && true'
  # Rust parallel does not start before the last argument is read
  (seq 10; sleep 5; echo 2) | time parallel -j2 'sleep 2; echo'
  tail -f /var/log/syslog | parallel echo

Rust parallel has no remote facilities.

It uses /tmp/parallel for tmp files and does not clean up if terminated abrubtly. If another user on the system uses Rust parallel, then /tmp/parallel will have the wrong permissions and Rust parallel will fail. A malicious user can setup the right permissions and symlink the output file to one of the user's files and next time the user uses Rust parallel it will overwrite this file.

If /tmp/parallel runs full during the run, Rust parallel does not report this, but finishes with success - thereby risking data loss.

  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN Rush AND GNU Parallel
Rush (https://github.com/shenwei356/rush) is written in Go and based on gargs.

Rush has some string manipulations that can be emulated by putting this into ~/.parallel/config (% is used instead of ^):

  --rpl '{:} s:(\.[^/]+)*$::'
  --rpl '{:%([^}]+?)} s:$$1(\.[^/]+)*$::'
  --rpl '{/:%([^}]*?)} s:.*/(.*)$$1(\.[^/]+)*$:$1:'
  --rpl '{/:} s:(.*/)?([^/.]+)(\.[^/]+)*$:$2:'

Here are the examples from rush's website:

1 seq 1 10 | rush echo {}

1 seq 1 10 | parallel echo {}

2 seq 1 10 | rush 'echo {}' -k

2 seq 1 10 | parallel -k 'echo {}'

3 seq 1 | rush 'sleep 2; echo {}' -t 1

3 seq 1 | parallel --timeout 1 'sleep 2; echo {}'

4 seq 1 | rush 'python script.py' -r 3

4 seq 1 | parallel --retries 4 'python script.py'

5 echo dir/file_1.txt.gz | rush 'echo {/} {%} {^_1.txt.gz}'

5 echo dir/file_1.txt.gz | parallel --plus 'echo {//} {/} {%_1.txt.gz}'

6 echo dir.d/file.txt.gz | rush 'echo {.} {:} {%.} {%:}'

6 echo dir.d/file.txt.gz | parallel 'echo {.} {:} {/.} {/:}'

7 echo 12 file.txt dir/s_1.fq.gz | rush 'echo job {#}: {2} {2.} {3%:^_1}'

7 echo 12 file.txt dir/s_1.fq.gz | parallel --colsep ' ' 'echo job {#}: {2} {2.} {3/:%_1}'

8 echo a=b=c | rush 'echo {1} {2} {3}' -d =

8 echo a=b=c | parallel --colsep = 'echo {1} {2} {3}'

9 echo a=b=c | rush -D "=" -k 'echo {}'

9 echo -n a=b=c | parallel -d "=" -k 'echo {}'

9a echo abc | rush -D "" -k 'echo {}'

9a echo -n abc | parallel --pipe --recend '' --block 1 -k parallel echo

10 seq 1 | rush 'echo Hello, {fname} {lname}!' -v fname=Wei -v lname=Shen

10 seq 1 | parallel -N0 'fname=Wei; lname=Shen; echo Hello, ${fname} ${lname}!'

11 echo read_1.fq.gz | rush -v p={:^_1} 'echo {p} {p}_2.fq.gz'

11 echo read_1.fq.gz | parallel 'p={:%_1}; echo ${p} ${p}_2.fq.gz'

12 seq 1 3 | rush 'sleep {}; echo {}' -c -t 2

12 seq 1 3 | parallel --joblog mylog --timeout 2 'sleep {}; echo {}'

12 Followed by:

12 seq 1 3 | parallel --joblog mylog --retry-failed 'sleep {}; echo {}'

  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN machma AND GNU Parallel
Todo. Requires Go > 1.6.

  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ClusterSSH AND GNU Parallel
ClusterSSH solves a different problem than GNU parallel.

ClusterSSH opens a terminal window for each computer and using a master window you can run the same command on all the computers. This is typically used for administrating several computers that are almost identical.

GNU parallel runs the same (or different) commands with different arguments in parallel possibly using remote computers to help computing. If more than one computer is listed in -S GNU parallel may only use one of these (e.g. if there are 8 jobs to be run and one computer has 8 cores).

GNU parallel can be used as a poor-man's version of ClusterSSH:

parallel --nonall -S server-a,server-b do_stuff foo bar

AUTHOR
When using GNU parallel for a publication please cite:

O. Tange (2011): GNU Parallel - The Command-Line Power Tool, ;login: The USENIX Magazine, February 2011:42-47.

This helps funding further development; and it won't cost you a cent. If you pay 10000 EUR you should feel free to use GNU Parallel without citing.

Copyright (C) 2007-10-18 Ole Tange, http://ole.tange.dk

Copyright (C) 2008,2009,2010 Ole Tange, http://ole.tange.dk

Copyright (C) 2010,2011,2012,2013,2014,2015,2016,2017 Ole Tange, http://ole.tange.dk and Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Parts of the manual concerning xargs compatibility is inspired by the manual of xargs from GNU findutils 4.4.2.

LICENSE
Copyright (C) 2007,2008,2009,2010,2011,2012,2013,2014,2015,2016,2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or at your option any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

  Documentation license I
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this documentation under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the file fdl.txt.

  Documentation license II
You are free:

to Share
    to copy, distribute and transmit the work

to Remix
    to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:

Attribution
    You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

Share Alike
    If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same, similar or a compatible license.

With the understanding that:

Waiver
    Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.

Public Domain
    Where the work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.

Other Rights
    In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license:

    •   Your fair dealing or fair use rights, or other applicable copyright exceptions and limitations;

    •   The author's moral rights;

    •   Rights other persons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights.

Notice
    For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.

A copy of the full license is included in the file as cc-by-sa.txt.

DEPENDENCIES
GNU parallel uses Perl, and the Perl modules Getopt::Long, IPC::Open3, Symbol, IO::File, POSIX, and File::Temp. For remote usage it also uses rsync with ssh.

SEE ALSO
find(1), xargs(1), make(1), pexec(1), ppss(1), xjobs(1), prll(1), dxargs(1), mdm(1)