Re: [9fans] A simple rc question

["ron minnich" <rminnich@gmail.com>]

On 5/15/07, Benn Newman <benn.newman@snc.edu> wrote:
> Duff answered ron's question in "Rc — The Plan 9 Shell".
>
>    12. Command grouping
>
>    A sequence of commands enclosed in {} may be used anywhere a command is
>    required. For example:
>
>       {sleep 3600;echo 'Time''s up!'}&
>
>    will wait an hour in the background, then print a message. Without the
>    braces,
>
>       sleep 3600;echo 'Time''s up!'&
>
>    would lock up the terminal for an hour, then print the message in the
>    background.


it does not really answer the question.
cmd ; cmd is two commands.
cmd | cmd is one command.
cmd ; cmd & will background the second command
cmd|cmd & should background both.

Just try this:
sleep 5|wc

and then
sleep 5|wc&

The | forms the two commands into a compound and the compound is backgrounded.

That works fine. But in a for it did not. This did work however:
for(i){{tail -f $i | whatever}&}

ron