But typing shift-7 is so much harder than shift-. :) In the interest of simplicity, why don't you provide wrapper shell for the background: 
#! /bin/bash
realProgram $* &> /dev/null &

[download]
Then they don't have to mess with any of those pesky non-alphanumerics at all :)

In reply to Re^3: How to know if a perl script is put in the background by Illuminatus
in thread How to know if a perl script is put in the background by rapide

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