GNU Parallel README

Please send problems and feedback to bug-parallel@gnu.org.

= Presentation of GNU Parallel =

GNU Parallel is a shell tool for executing jobs in parallel using one
or more machines. A job is typically a single command or a small
script that has to be run for each of the lines in the input. The
typical input is a list of files, a list of hosts, a list of users, or
a list of tables.

If you use xargs today you will find GNU Parallel very easy to use. If
you write loops in shell, you will find GNU Parallel may be able to
replace most of the loops and make them run faster by running jobs in
parallel. If you use ppss or pexec you will find GNU Parallel will
often make the command easier to read.

GNU Parallel also makes sure output from the commands is the same
output as you would get had you run the commands sequentially. This
makes it possible to use output from GNU Parallel as input for other
programs.


= Installation =

Installation of GNU Parallel is a simple as:

  ./configure && make && make install

After this you should be able to do:

  (echo foss.org.my; echo gnu.org; echo freenetproject.org) | parallel traceroute

This will run traceroute to 3 different hosts in parallel and print
the output when the traceroutes are done.


= New versions =

New versions will be released at: ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/parallel/