NAME
wait — await process completion
DESCRIPTION
If no argument is specified,
wait
waits until all processes (started with
&)
of the current shell have completed,
and reports on abnormal terminations.
If a numeric argument
pid
is given and is the process
ID
of a background process,
wait
waits until that process has completed.
Otherwise, if
pid
is not a background process,
wait
exits without waiting for any processes to complete.
Because the
wait()
system call must be executed in the parent process,
the shell itself executes
wait
without creating a new process (see
wait(2)).
Command-Line Arguments
wait
supports the following command line arguments:
- pid
The unsigned decimal integer process
ID
of a command, whose termination
wait
is to wait for.
WARNINGS
Some processes in a 2-or-more-stage pipeline
may not be children of the shell, and thus cannot be waited for.
STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
wait: SVID2, SVID3, XPG2, XPG3, XPG4, POSIX.2
