Wait for all processes with a certain name to finish (in bash)

Question

I would like to wait in linux (Ubuntu 11.10) for a load of processes to finish. Each of these processes has a different pid but the same name. Is it possible to do this?

EDIT:

Perhaps I should specify that I don't necessarily know what the pid are, just the process name.

EDIT:

Thanks for the answers; Kevin's seems to do what I want. However, it doesn't work in the specific application I have, so I've posted a more detailed follow-up question here.

Dives

Answer 1

wait $(pgrep programName)

Ought to do it.

Mihalco

Provided that no new ones spawn after the pgrep executes. – Thulium

That requires that the process you want to wait for was started in the same shell you want to use the wait command in. – Sext

Answer 2

wait $(pidof processname)

perhaps.

Jaehne

Answer 3

As long as you have the pid of these processes:

wait $pid_of_process

That should do it.

Chargeable