wait — Wait for a child process to end
Format
wait [pid|job-id …]
tcsh shell: wait
Description
wait waits for one or more jobs or child processes to complete in the background. If you specify one or more job-id arguments, wait waits for all processes in each job to end. If you specify pid, wait waits for the child process with that process ID (PID) to end. If no child process has that process ID, wait returns immediately.
If you specify neither a pid nor a job-id, wait waits for the process IDs known to the invoking shell to complete.
In the tcsh shell, the shell waits for all background jobs. If the shell is interactive, an interrupt disrupts the wait and cause the shell to print the names and job numbers of all outstanding jobs. See tcsh — Invoke a C shell.
Localization
- LANG
- LC_ALL
- LC_CTYPE
- LC_MESSAGES
- NLSPATH
See Localization for more information.
Usage notes
wait is a built-in shell command.
Exit values
If one or more arguments (pid or job-id) are specified, the exit status of wait is the exit status of the last argument.
- 0
- Successful completion or wait was invoked with no arguments, and all child processes known to the invoking shell have completed.
- 1–126
- An error occurred
- 127
- A specified pid or job-id has terminated or is unknown by the invoking shell
Portability
POSIX.2, X/Open Portability Guide, UNIX systems.
Related information
sleep, tcsh