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clinuxposix-api

Will POSIX system(3) call to an asynchronous shell command return immediately?

For example, system("sh /mydir/some-script.sh &")

Solution 
  • system("sh /mydir/some-script.sh &")

    executes

    /bin/sh -c 'sh /mydir/some-script.sh &'

    system will return as soon as outer shell returns, which will be immediately after it launches the inner shell. Neither shell will wait for some-script.sh to finish.

    $ cat some-script.sh
sleep 1
echo foo

$ /bin/sh -c 'sh some-script.sh &' ; echo bar ; sleep 2
bar
foo