.\" Copyright (c) 2001-2003 The Open Group, All Rights Reserved .TH "BG" P 2003 "IEEE/The Open Group" "POSIX Programmer's Manual" .\" bg .SH NAME bg \- run jobs in the background .SH SYNOPSIS .LP \fBbg\fP \fB[\fP\fIjob_id\fP \fB...\fP\fB]\fP\fB\fP .SH DESCRIPTION .LP If job control is enabled (see the description of \fIset\fP \fB-m\fP), the \fIbg\fP utility shall resume suspended jobs from the current environment (see \fIShell Execution Environment\fP ) by running them as background jobs. If the job specified by \fIjob_id\fP is already a running background job, the \fIbg\fP utility shall have no effect and shall exit successfully. .LP Using \fIbg\fP to place a job into the background shall cause its process ID to become "known in the current shell execution environment", as if it had been started as an asynchronous list; see \fIAsynchronous Lists\fP . .SH OPTIONS .LP None. .SH OPERANDS .LP The following operand shall be supported: .TP 7 \fIjob_id\fP Specify the job to be resumed as a background job. If no \fIjob_id\fP operand is given, the most recently suspended job shall be used. The format of \fIjob_id\fP is described in the Base Definitions volume of IEEE\ Std\ 1003.1-2001, Section 3.203, Job Control Job ID. .sp .SH STDIN .LP Not used. .SH INPUT FILES .LP None. .SH ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES .LP The following environment variables shall affect the execution of \fIbg\fP: .TP 7 \fILANG\fP Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions volume of IEEE\ Std\ 1003.1-2001, Section 8.2, Internationalization Variables for the precedence of internationalization variables used to determine the values of locale categories.) .TP 7 \fILC_ALL\fP If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other internationalization variables. .TP 7 \fILC_CTYPE\fP Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments). .TP 7 \fILC_MESSAGES\fP Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error. .TP 7 \fINLSPATH\fP Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of \fILC_MESSAGES \&.\fP .sp .SH ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS .LP Default. .SH STDOUT .LP The output of \fIbg\fP shall consist of a line in the format: .sp .RS .nf \fB"[%d] %s\\n", <\fP\fIjob-number\fP\fB>, <\fP\fIcommand\fP\fB> \fP .fi .RE .LP where the fields are as follows: .TP 7 <\fIjob-number\fP> A number that can be used to identify the job to the \fIwait\fP, \fIfg\fP, and \fIkill\fP utilities. Using these utilities, the job can be identified by prefixing the job number with \fB'%'\fP . .TP 7 <\fIcommand\fP> The associated command that was given to the shell. .sp .SH STDERR .LP The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages. .SH OUTPUT FILES .LP None. .SH EXTENDED DESCRIPTION .LP None. .SH EXIT STATUS .LP The following exit values shall be returned: .TP 7 \ 0 Successful completion. .TP 7 >0 An error occurred. .sp .SH CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS .LP If job control is disabled, the \fIbg\fP utility shall exit with an error and no job shall be placed in the background. .LP \fIThe following sections are informative.\fP .SH APPLICATION USAGE .LP A job is generally suspended by typing the SUSP character (-Z on most systems); see the Base Definitions volume of IEEE\ Std\ 1003.1-2001, Chapter 11, General Terminal Interface. At that point, \fIbg\fP can put the job into the background. This is most effective when the job is expecting no terminal input and its output has been redirected to non-terminal files. A background job can be forced to stop when it has terminal output by issuing the command: .sp .RS .nf \fBstty tostop \fP .fi .RE .LP A background job can be stopped with the command: .sp .RS .nf \fBkill -s stop\fP \fIjob ID\fP .fi .RE .LP The \fIbg\fP utility does not work as expected when it is operating in its own utility execution environment because that environment has no suspended jobs. In the following examples: .sp .RS .nf \fB\&... | xargs bg (bg) \fP .fi .RE .LP each \fIbg\fP operates in a different environment and does not share its parent shell's understanding of jobs. For this reason, \fIbg\fP is generally implemented as a shell regular built-in. .SH EXAMPLES .LP None. .SH RATIONALE .LP The extensions to the shell specified in this volume of IEEE\ Std\ 1003.1-2001 have mostly been based on features provided by the KornShell. The job control features provided by \fIbg\fP, \fIfg\fP, and \fIjobs\fP are also based on the KornShell. The standard developers examined the characteristics of the C shell versions of these utilities and found that differences exist. Despite widespread use of the C shell, the KornShell versions were selected for this volume of IEEE\ Std\ 1003.1-2001 to maintain a degree of uniformity with the rest of the KornShell features selected (such as the very popular command line editing features). .LP The \fIbg\fP utility is expected to wrap its output if the output exceeds the number of display columns. .SH FUTURE DIRECTIONS .LP None. .SH SEE ALSO .LP \fIAsynchronous Lists\fP , \fIfg\fP , \fIkill\fP() , \fIjobs\fP , \fIwait\fP() .SH COPYRIGHT Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .