dwm status bar won't display apm output

[asemisldkfj]

this works fine running it from an xterm with dwm already running. mixerctl, apm, and date output all show up as expected.

xsetroot -name "volume: $(mixerctl -n outputs.master | sed 's/^[0-9]*,//g') | battery: $(apm -l)% | $(date "+%A, %B %e, %Y %r")"

however, if I put the same command in my .xsession file, the apm output disappears and all I see is "battery: %".

while true
do
xsetroot -name "volume: $(mixerctl -n outputs.master | sed 's/^[0-9]*,//g') | battery: $(apm -l)% | $(date "+%A, %B %e, %Y %r")"
done &
xbindkeys &
dwm

I can't figure out why the output of apm would disappear or be blank like that. maybe it has something to do with the environment that the .xsession script is run in or something. that's all I can think of. does anyone have any ideas?

I found this thread from the dwm mailing lists but it wasn't much help: http://www.mail-archive.com/dwm@suck.../msg02452.html

[asemisldkfj]

no one?

[Carpetsmoker]

I installed dwm and I have the same problem. Using xinit and ~/.xinitrc works fine though ...

[asemisldkfj]

thanks for the info, Carpetsmoker. I'll read up on xsession and xinitrc a little bit more and see if I can figure this out.

[Carpetsmoker]

I couldn't sleep and I looked at your problem a bit.

The issue is that apm lives in /usr/sbin/, by default this isn't in the PATH with xsession.
Using a full path solves the issue.
*Waits for asem to slap his forehead and shout do'h*

Guess you can also use set/export but I keep forgetting how to use that (Die hard csh user).

As a sidenote, I had some problems while testing with 10 different while loopsrunning in the background, so if you CTRL-ALT-BS or something like that remember to manually kill the sh instance running in the background.

Isn't there a better way do this with dwm?

[asemisldkfj]

thanks for the solution, Carpetsmoker . I ran whereis on mixerctl and the other stuff in the status bar, and at least one other thing was in /usr/bin, so I figured /usr/sbin would be in PATH if /urs/bin was. it's always those stupid assumptions that get me! also, I guess my initial suspicion was right in that it has to do with the environment that xsession runs in, because /usr/sbin is indeed in my user's and root's PATHs. must be whatever user xsession or xdm runs as.

you can do meta+shift+q to quit dwm, IIRC.

[Carpetsmoker]

you can do meta+shift+q to quit dwm, IIRC.

That won't stop the while loop, because that's forked.