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I want to run 2 commands (command1 and command2) in the same line, where command1 starts a background process and command2 starts a frontground process.

I tried:

command1 & ; command2

But it says: "-bash: syntax error near unexpected token `;'"

How could I run the 2 commands in the same line?

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2 Answers 2

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2

Try this:

(command1 &); command2

The the syntax (command) is creating a "subshell". You can read here something about it.

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4 Comments

Why would you want to run the first command in another shell? I don't see the benefit about it in this case.
Oh mainly for clarity. I think it's more readable for a not so expert person.
Mmm yes, I agree it can be read more easily. Only that it is another subshell with all its meanings: variables set in the current shell won't be accessible, etc.
It depends: if you export a variabile in the main shell, you'll see it in the subshell. Anyway, in this simple case, I can't see any variabile problem.
2

; is not helping here. The control operator you need here is & after the first command (thanks Nick Russo in comments):

command1 & command2

From man bash:

If a command is terminated by the control operator &, the shell executes the command in the background in a subshell. The shell does not wait for the command to finish, and the return status is 0.

Commands separated by a ; are executed sequentially; the shell waits for each command to terminate in turn. The return status is the exit status of the last command executed.

Test

$ sleep 10 & echo "yes"
[2] 13368
yes
$ 
[1]-  Done                    sleep 10
$
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2 Comments

This is the correct answer to the question, though it could be worded even more strongly: The & replaces the ; as the control operator: "Commands separated by a ; are executed sequentially", "If a command is terminated by the control operator &, the shell executes the command in the background in a subshell." linux.die.net/man/1/bash
@NickRusso thanks for the comment, I added it into the answer for better understanding.

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