Run one command after another, even if I suspend the first one (Ctrl-z)

Question

I know in bash I can run one command after another by separating them by semicolons, like

$ command1; command2

Or if I only want command2 to run only if command1 succeeds, using &&:

$ command1 && command2

This works, but if I suspend command1 using Ctrl-z, in the first case, it runs command2 immediately, and in the second case, it doesn't run it at all. How can I run commands in sequence, but still be able to suspend the first command, but not have the second run until I have restarted it (with fg) and it finishes? I'd prefer something as simple to type as possible, as I would like to do this interactively. Or maybe I just need to set an option somewhere.

By the way, what is the proper term for what Ctrl-z does?

Duero

command1; command2 should do exactly what you want. As to the terminology, Ctrl-Z suspends the process. – Callipash

Well it doesn't. I'm running bash version 4.2.8(2)-release on Mac OS X 10.8 in iTerm2. – Duero

Thanks for the terminology. I'll update the question to use it. – Duero

Yeah, you're right, it doesn't. I think you need a subshell. See my answer. – Callipash

Answer 1

The following should do it:

(command1; command2)

Note the added parentheses.

Callipash

Awesome! Now, do you or anyone care to give an explanation as to why it behaves the way it does for these three cases (command1; command2, command1 && command 2, and (command1; command2))? – Duero

Actually, I am not sure. Perhaps someone could enlighten both of us. – Callipash

Technically, you don't suspend processes with Control-z, you suspend jobs. With command1; command2, the active job is just the process command1 when you press Control-z, so it is suspended and the next job (command2) begins. With (command1; command2), the active job consists of the subshell that runs the two commands, so the entire subshell is suspended by Control-z. You can confirm this by running the jobs command after suspending each. – Balboa

Thanks @chepner, and what about the command1 && command2 option? That is what I frequently encounter. Even though the job consists of both commands together, I have also noticed that the second command won't execute after backgrounding. (command1 && command2) works, of course, but I often do not know that I want to background a process ahead of time. Otherwise I would have executed it as a background job from the start. – Pulsatory

command1 && command2 is actually two jobs (a job consists of a pipeline, and the && list consists of two (single-process) pipelines, command1 and command2). The second command doesn't run until command1 exits (with zero status), and command1 doesn't exit when it is stopped. – Balboa

Answer 2

In Bash, when you place a job into the background (using CTRL+Z or &) it does not wait for the job to finish, and gives an exit code of zero (success). That much you have observed, and it is documented in the man pages.

The behaviour of logical "AND", &&, is that it tests from left-to right. Each part must be successful, so if the first is unsuccessful then the second will not run. So with && it runs commands from left to right until one of them fails. The definition of success is an exitcode ($?) of zero.

Contrast this with logical "OR", ||, which runs commands from left to right until one of them works.

Explaination of the subshell solution give by @NPE can also be found in the man pages:

Compound commands and command sequences of the form ‘a ; b ; c’ are not handled gracefully when process suspension is attempted. When a process is stopped, the shell immediately executes the next command in the sequence. It suffices to place the sequence of commands between parentheses to force it into a subshell, which may be stopped as a unit.

The proper term for CTRL+Z is the suspend character, again from the man pages:

Typing the suspend character (typically ^Z, Control-Z) while a process is running causes that process to be stopped and returns control to bash.

(Sorry to quote the man pages so much, but they really are your friends and worth reading)

If you look at stty -a you will see something like this:

susp = ^Z; 

So you can alter it, hence the phrase "typically". Don't do that though, it will confuse the heck out of everyone. The terminal driver raises a SIGTSTP signal which is trapped by Bash.

Mcentire

I still don't understand the behavior with &&. Does suspending the process cause it to return nonzero? – Duero

What man pages are these from? I figured the answer might be there, but I had no idea where to even start. – Duero

&& joins two pipelines, and each pipeline is a separate job. (Note that pipeline is one or more commands joined by a |, which means command1 is technically a single one-command pipeline). – Balboa