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linuxbashunixkilljob-control

Linux: kill background task

How do I kill the last spawned background task in Linux?

Example:

doSomething
doAnotherThing
doB &
doC
doD
#kill doB
????
Solution

  • There's a special variable for this in Bash:

    kill $!

    $! expands to the PID of the last process executed in the background.