WAIT(1)                      UNIX Reference Manual                     WAIT(1)

NAME
     wait - await process completion

SYNOPSIS
     wait [pid]

DESCRIPTION
     If invoked with no arguments, the wait utility waits until all existing
     child processes in the background have terminated.

     Available operands:

     pid     If a pid operand is specified, and it is the process ID of a
             background child process that still exists, the wait utility
             waits until that process has completed and consumes its status
             information, without consuming the status information of any oth-
             er process.

             If a pid operand is specified that is not the process ID of a
             child background process that still exists, wait exits without
             waiting for any processes to complete.

     The wait utility exits with one of the following values:

     0       The wait utility was invoked with no operands and all of the ex-
             isting background child processes have terminated, or the process
             specified by the pid operand exited normally with 0 as its exit
             status.

     >0      The specified process did not exist and its exit status informa-
             tion was not available, or the specified process existed or its
             exit status information was available, and it terminated with a
             non-zero exit status.

     If the specified process terminated abnormally due to the receipt of a
     signal, the exit status information of wait contains that termination
     status as well.

STANDARDS
     The wait command is expected to be IEEE Std1003.2 (``POSIX'') compatible.

BSD Experimental                 June 5, 1993                                1