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POTimeout a command in bash without unnecessary delay
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  1. POTimeout a command in bash without unnecessary delay
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    copied!<p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/601543#637753">This answer</a> to <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/601543">Command line command to auto-kill a command after a certain amount of time</a> </p> <p>proposes a 1-line method to timeout a long-running command from the bash command line:</p> <pre><code>( /path/to/slow command with options ) &amp; sleep 5 ; kill $! </code></pre> <p>But it's possible that a given "long-running" command may finish earlier than the timeout. (Let's call it a "typically-long-running-but-sometimes-fast" command, or <em>tlrbsf</em> for fun.)</p> <p>So this nifty 1-liner approach has a couple of problems. First, the <code>sleep</code> isn't conditional, so that sets an undesirable lower bound on the time taken for the sequence to finish. Consider 30s or 2m or even 5m for the sleep, when the <em>tlrbsf</em> command finishes in 2 seconds &mdash; highly undesirable. Second, the <code>kill</code> is unconditional, so this sequence will attempt to kill a non-running process and whine about it.</p> <p>So...</p> <p><strong>Is there a way</strong> to timeout a typically-long-running-but-sometimes-fast (<em>"tlrbsf"</em>) command that</p> <ul> <li>has a bash implementation (the other question already has Perl and C answers)</li> <li>will terminate at the earlier of the two: <em>tlrbsf</em> program termination, or timeout elapsed</li> <li>will not kill non-existing/non-running processes (or, optionally: will not <em>complain</em> about a bad kill)</li> <li>doesn't have to be a 1-liner</li> <li>can run under Cygwin or Linux</li> </ul> <p>... and, for bonus points, runs the <em>tlrbsf</em> command in the foreground and any 'sleep' or extra process in the background, such that the stdin/stdout/stderr of the <em>tlrbsf</em> command can be redirected, same as if it had been run directly?</p> <p>If so, please share your code. If not, please explain why.</p> <p>I have spent awhile trying to hack the aforementioned example but I'm hitting the limit of my bash skills.</p>
 

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