wait(1)
NAME
wait − await completion of process
SYNOPSIS
wait [pid]
DESCRIPTION
With no argument, wait waits until all processes (started with &) of the current shell have completed and reports on abnormal terminations. If a numeric argument pid is given and is the process ID of a background process, then wait waits until that process has completed. Otherwise, if pid is not a background process, wait exits without waiting for any processes to complete.
Because the wait(2) system call must be executed in the parent process, the shell itself executes wait without creating a new process.
SEE ALSO
WARNINGS
Not all the processes of a 2-or-more-stage pipeline are children of the shell, and thus cannot be waited for.
STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
wait: SVID2, XPG2, XPG3, proposed POSIX.2 FIPS (June 1990)
Hewlett-Packard Company — HP-UX Release 8.05: June 1991