Starting up a screen (unix command) + running a command in 1 command?

Question

Was wondering how I can start up a command such as:

while :; do ./myCommand; done;

But instead of doing the usual

screen -S nameOfMyScreen

Then the command

while :; do ./myCommand; done;

Then detach the screen

^a ^d (Control "a" the control "d"

I would like it to start and detach. Thanks!

Answer 1

screen -d -m sh -c "while :; do ./myCommand; done;"

Explanation:

• -d -m starts screen in detached mode (create session but don't attach to it)
• sh -c commandline starts a shell which executes the given command line (necessary, since you are using the while builtin).

Answer 2

From screen -h, these look useful:

-dmS name     Start as daemon: Screen session in detached mode.
-X            Execute <cmd> as a screen command in the specified session.

I haven't done this myself, but that's where I'd start.

Update:

The top of the help also says

Use: path/to/screen [-opts] [cmd [args]]

so the -X switch may be to execute a screen command as opposed to a shell command. You might just be able to put your command after the -dmS <name> without any -X switch.