WAIT ( 1 ) USER COMMANDSWAIT ( 1 )

NAME

wait - wait for process or job completion

SYNOPSIS

wait [ options ] [job ...]

DESCRIPTION

wait with no operands, waits until all jobs known to the invoking shell have terminated. If one or more job operands are specified, wait waits until all of them have completed.

Each job can be specified as one of the following:
number
number refers to a process id.
-number
number refers to a process group id.
%number
number refer to a job number.
%string
Refers to a job whose name begins with string.
%?string
Refers to a job whose name contains string.
%+ or %%
Refers to the current job.
%-
Refers to the previous job.

If one ore more job operands is a process id or process group id not known by the current shell environment, wait treats each of them as if it were a process that exited with status 127.

EXIT STATUS

If wait is invoked with one or more jobs, and all of them have terminated or were not known by the invoking shell, the exit status of wait will be that of the last job. Otherwise, it will be one of the following:
0
wait utility was invoked with no operands and all processes known by the invoking process have terminated.
127
job is a process id or process group id that is unknown to the current shell environment.

SEE ALSO

jobs(1), ps(1)

IMPLEMENTATION

version
wait (AT&T Research) 1999-06-17
author
David Korn <dgk@research.att.com>
copyright
Copyright © 1982-2010 AT&T Intellectual Property
license
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/cpl1.0.txt