Waiting on background tasks

[Erik Christiansen]

On Mon, Apr 10, 2006 at 04:14:20AM -0500, Kenneth P. Turvey wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Apr 2006 17:32:47 +1000, Erik Christiansen wrote:
> 
> > The bash shell has a built-in "wait [n]". From man bash: "If n is not
> > given, all currently active child processes are waited for, and the return
> > status is zero."
> 
> Thanks to all those that responded.  This will be a big help.  Out of
> curiosity, Erik, does this translate to other shells as well or is it just
> a bash thing?

Not sure. All the servers here are linux, so sh is bash too.
(Concentrating on just one shell suits my ageing grey cells, especially
since it's a while since I did a lot of it.) You'd think the others
would need the facility too, but I'd be speculating.

> > So just delete "foralltasks" ;-)
> 
> I actually did a man on wait, but I didn't think about it being built-in
> function. 

Yeah, sometimes this stuff just won't reveal itself unless you already
know pretty much where it is, and what it looks like. (And if you had
found it, several of us would have missed the opportunity to share.)

Erik

-- 
manual, n.:
   A unit of documentation.  There are always three or more on a given item.
   One is on the shelf; someone has the others.  The information you need in in
   the others.                                                 -- Ray Simard