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Accepted
Pandya
Asked: 2014-05-16 05:49:34 +0800 CST

How do I pause for the specific time between two commands in a script?

  • 772

I want to do something like following:

#!/bin/bash
command1
<pause for 30 seconds>
command2
exit

How can I do it?

command-line

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    You can use this in a terminal: 

    command1; sleep 30; command2

    In your script:

    #!/bin/bash
command1
sleep 30
command2
exit

    Suffix for the sleep time:

    • s for seconds (the default)
    • m for minutes
    • h for hours
    • d for days
    • 28

  2. You can use read -t. E.g:

    read -p "Continuing in 5 seconds..." -t 5
echo "Continuing..."

    In your script:

    command1
read -p 'Pausing for 30 seconds' -t 30
command2

    Note that you can press Enter to bypass the timeout period.

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