Re: [Help-bash] parallel processing in bash (to replace for loop)

[Greg Wooledge]

On Wed, May 09, 2012 at 11:12:38PM +0200, Ole Tange wrote:
> From GNU Parallel's man page:
> 
>     _command_ Command to execute.
>      [...]
>     The command must be an executable, a script, a composed command,
>     or a function. If it is a function you need to export -f the
>     function first. An alias will, however, not work (see why
>     http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=484296).
> 
> So it is not entirely true that GNU Parallel is not able to understand
> bash functions, but it _is_ true, that it does not work without the
> export.

More precisely, parallel invokes bash, and bash can extract the function
definition from the environment.  Parallel doesn't understand the function
definition embedded in the environment, but it doesn't need to; it simply
passes the environment along untouched.

Of course this won't work if parallel invokes sh instead of bash.