Re^2: exec function does not return command prompt

Crackers2: Thank you for your reply to my question. It appears that I do not understand how the fork function works. Nevertheless, since both test1.pl and test2.pl do exit, shouldn't I see a command prompt at the conclusion of each one?

Comment on Re^2: exec function does not return command prompt

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Re^3: exec function does not return command prompt by Crackers2 (Parson) on Aug 19, 2014 at 15:03 UTC
No. That's not how the shell works. Either it will wait for both to exit before showing the (one) prompt, or it will show the prompt after a certain proces exits and finish the other one in the background; in that case you won't get a new prompt after the background one exits. I'm not exactly sure when it decides to keep stuff in the foreground or run them in the background. In your case I think it's running both in the foreground, but due to buffering the output from test2 just happens to show up after the prompt	[reply]

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Re^3: exec function does not return command prompt
by Crackers2 (Parson) on Aug 19, 2014 at 15:03 UTC

No. That's not how the shell works. Either it will wait for both to exit before showing the (one) prompt, or it will show the prompt after a certain proces exits and finish the other one in the background; in that case you won't get a new prompt after the background one exits.

I'm not exactly sure when it decides to keep stuff in the foreground or run them in the background.

In your case I think it's running both in the foreground, but due to buffering the output from test2 just happens to show up after the prompt

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