Re: waiting for process substitutions

[Oğuz]

On Tue, Aug 6, 2024 at 2:58 PM Zachary Santer <zsanter@gmail.com> wrote:
> I can not think of a time when I called 'wait' from the command line
> that wasn't just for testing something. Even using process
> substitutions on the command line is a relative rarity for me. If
> we're balancing behavior on the command line against behavior in a
> script, I think I'd give priority to scripting, at least here.

This belongs on your personal blog.

> Chet doesn't see much value in making process substitutions jobs,
> which I guess is fine. Can we agree that if they were made jobs,
> though, waiting for all of them would be acceptable? You could see
> them listed and handle them however you need.

Making them jobs would be a bad idea. There are two major use cases of
process substitutions:
1. Piping the output of a script to a command from within the script itself.
2. Creating one-off FIFO files in scripts and on the command line.
Neither use case would be improved if procsubs were made jobs. And
it'd create too much noise for miniscule benefit.

> Bash is evidently already tracking all the procsub pids in their own
> list, which now is always cleared when you call 'wait' without
> arguments.

It's okay as long as the user has his CHILD_MAX remembered jobs. If
too much memory is used for procsubs or if they stay in memory for too
long that should be fixed.