HP-UX Reference (11i v2 04/09) - 1 User Commands N-Z (vol 2)

wait(1) wait(1)

NAME

wait - await process completion

SYNOPSIS

wait [ pid ]

DESCRIPTION

If no argument is speciﬁed,

wait waits until all processes (started with &) of the current shell have com-

pleted, and reports on abnormal terminations. If a numeric argument pid is given and is the process

of a background process, wait waits until that process has completed. Otherwise, if pid is not a back-

ground 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.