[Solved] Start a background process from within a loop?

foutrelis · 2008-09-20 16:19:00

What I'm trying to do is this:

for i in $(seq 3); do
    sleep $i &
done

but bash doesn't like the one-line version:

[foutrelis@foutboxd ~]$ for i in $(seq 3); do sleep $i &; done
-bash: syntax error near unexpected token `;'

Halp?

Last edited by foutrelis (2008-09-20 17:23:23)

Ramses de Norre · 2008-09-20 16:30:06

This does work in zsh:

for i in $(seq 3); do sleep $i &; done

It exits with the same error message as you got in bash though..

jcasper · 2008-09-20 17:16:37

The '&' after the sleep command is the termination of the command, so you don't need the extra ';'

$ for i in $(seq 3); do sleep $i & done

See the section "Lists" under "SHELL GRAMMAR" near the top of the bash man page.

Last edited by jcasper (2008-09-20 17:19:13)

foutrelis · 2008-09-20 17:23:05

@jcasper: Awesome. Thanks a bunch!

Arch Linux