execline
Software
skarnet.org

The wait program

wait waits for a set of children, then executes a program.

Interface

In an execlineb script:

     wait [ -I | -i ] [ -r | -t timeout ] { [ pids... ] } prog...

• wait reads a list of pids in a (possibly empty) block, and unquotes it.
• wait waits for every child whose pid is listed in pids.... If pids... is an empty list, it waits for every child process it has.
• wait then execs into prog....

Options

• -r : equivalent to -t 0. Do not pause: only reap processes that are already dead when wait is invoked.
• -t timeout : wait for a maximum of timeout milliseconds. If there still are living processes among pids... (or among wait's children if pids... is an empty list), after timeout milliseconds, they will not be reaped.
• -I : loose. If wait times out while waiting for children to die, it will still exec into prog.... This is the default.
• -i : strict. If wait times out, it will print an error message and exit 1.