Question

I want to run xterm -e file.sh without terminating.

In the file, I’m sending commands to the background and when the script is done, they are still not finished.

What I’m doing currently is:

(cd /myfolder; /xterm -ls -geometry 115x65 -sb -sl 1000) 

and then after the window pops up

sh file.sh
exit

What I want to do is something like:

(cd /myfolder; /xterm -ls -geometry 115x65 -sb -sl 1000 -e sh file.sh)

without terminating and wait until the commands in the background finish.

Anyone know how to do that?

Answer 1

Use the wait built-in in you shell script. It’ll wait until all the background jobs are finished.

Working Example:

#!/bin/bash
# Script to show usage of wait
sleep 20 &
sleep 20 &
sleep 20 &
sleep 20 &
sleep 20 &
wait

The output

sgulati@maverick:~$ bash test.sh
[1]   Done                    sleep 20
[2]   Done                    sleep 20
[3]   Done                    sleep 20
[4]-  Done                    sleep 20
[5]+  Done                    sleep 20
sgulati@maverick:~$