In bash 4.4.19, wait -n will collect the exit status of multiple processes if there are any -- not just one:
bje@bapbop:~$ sleep 10 & sleep 10 & sleep 10 & sleep 10 & [1] 13296 [2] 13297 [3] 13298 [4] 13299 bje@bapbop:~$ wait -n [1] Done sleep 10 [2] Done sleep 10 [3]- Done sleep 10 [4]+ Done sleep 10 This makes it impossible to wait for the completion of any process and then individually collect the exit status of each command. I think wait -n should be guaranteed to only return one of the available (terminated) processes. If there are multiple, they can be collected by calling wait -n multiple times or calling wait without '-n'. Ben
