I need to have a batch job wait for n seconds, but I'd also like it to "wake
up" immediately if needed. I was thinking that a message file would do the
trick.

When I do the following interactively...

Session A:

:build msgfile;msg
:file m=msgfile,old;semi;gmulti
:input response;wait=60 < *x

Session B:
:file m=msgfile,old;semi;gmulti
:echo OK >> *x

Session A says...

End of file on input. (CIERR 900)

and msgfile now has an eof of 1, and record 1 contains the string "OK".

Figuring that GMULTI was allowing the file pointer to move on me, I tried
;MULTI, but that get me...

Couldn't open output redirection file, command failed. (CIERR 9425)
DEVICE UNAVAILABLE  (FSERR 55)

In any event, I can work around the end of file error message easily enough,
except, when I try running
"Session A" as a batch job, the INPUT;WAIT=60 does not time out !!!

Want I'd like to have happen is, in batch, for the :INPUT command to either
read a record
from msgfile (if one gets ECHOed to it), or, timeout after 60 seconds.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
David Maclary