repeat same command n times

[gosha]

hello,
how do I let unix repeat the same command n times, without having to do it manually?
I need this for latex, which gets my page formatting properly only after running it quite e few times.
tks

[DutchDaemon]

num=0; while [ $num -le 10 ]; do some_command; num=$(expr $num + 1); sleep 2; done

Will run some_command ten times with 2 second intervals.

In a script named 'run':

num=0; while [ $num -le $1 ]; do $2; num=$(expr $num + 1); sleep 2; done

Call as 'run 10 ls' or 'run 3 "ps ax"' (commands containing a space must be quoted to be seen as one argument).

Mind you, if it's always the exact same command you have to run five times, you can just put the command in a shell script 5 times and run the shell script

[Carpetsmoker]

You can use a shell script, something like:

#!/bin/sh

for i in $(jot 10); do
  echo "Running command for the ${i}nth time"
done

This will run 10 times.

[Carpetsmoker]

We Dutch people are fast!

DutchDaemon's solution will work too, personally I think `my' solution is cleaner, but I guess that's a matter of personal preference.

[gosha]

Cool!
They all work perfectly. I also thought I could simply write the same command in a script many times, but it is a good way to learn something new.
Thanks a lot.

[TerryP]

Originally Posted by gosha

Cool!
I also thought I could simply write the same command in a script many times, but it is a good way to learn something new.
Thanks a lot.

generally the thought "repeat" and the word "loop" are synonymous, inclusive of the old "I don't want to type this thing X amount of times" factor ;-)

[DutchDaemon]

Yeah, I have a blind spot for jot, I guess. I always forget it exists when I need enumerations
Anyway, another fine example of 'there's always more than one way with Unix'.

[ephemera]

And here's another one :P

perl -e 'print "date;sleep 1;"x10' | sh

[DutchDaemon]

Now you're just showing off.