wait - stops the interactive shell for batch jobs

### USAGE

        wait [<max-time>]

### DESCRIPTION

Ordinarily Lens cannot be run in the background if it is idle. It may be run in the background if it is just going to process a script and then exit, which is the normal case when training on a single processor. However, because it attempts to read from standard input when it is idle, Lens will suspend itself if it is simply put in the background where it cannot access standard input.

There are cases, which primarily arise during parallel training, when a Lens process must sit idle while it waits for network communications. We would often like such processes to run in the background. To do this, the `wait` command must be used. This causes Lens to enter a loop in which it will process GUI and network events but will not attempt to read from standard input. Typically, a parallel training client would load a network, connect to the server, and then call `wait`, never to return until the server tells it to exit.

The default behavior of the command is to wait indefinitely. Given a max-time in seconds, `wait` will return at that point and, if it was called in the shell, the shell will once more be active. A wait can be terminated by an interrupt signal (`Ctrl-C`) or by pressing the button at the bottom of the Main Window when it reads "Stop Waiting".

If "`wait 0`" is executed during a wait, the wait will end. If several waits are occurring simultaneously, the top one on the stack will be terminated. Telling the client to execute "`wait 0`" is one way a parallel training server could tell a client to stop waiting without actually killing the client.

### EXAMPLES

To wait indefinitely:

        lens> wait

To make a "perpetual client" that repeatedly tries to connect to a server at a particular machine and port:

        while 1 {catch {startClient spock.starfleet.edu 9999}; wait 60}

In this way, server processes could come and go and the client would automatically connect into whatever server was listening at port 9999 at the time. Once a connection to a server was established, it would not be affected by attempts to reconnect.

### SEE ALSO

waitForClients, sendEval, startClient, trainParallel

Last modified: Mon Mar 1 21:04:17 EST 1999