Get PID and return code from 1 line bash call

Question

Imagine we have a long command sleep 10 (for instance). We would like to execute it on another server using python (the ssh library paramiko to be specific).

I need a 1 line command that starts the command, prints the PID of the command, and then waits for it to finish and finally returns the exit status of the command.

What I've tried so far:

bash -c "echo $BASHPID ; exec sleep 10" ; echo $?

This prints the PID of the shell, then calls exec on the long command, and then waits and prints the exit status. The problem is $BASHPID prints the PID of the outer bash shell (possibly indicating calling bash -c cmd doesn't actually spawn a full new shell?).

If I call the above command in three lines, it works.

bash
echo $BASHPID ; exec sleep 10
echo $?

Any attempt using subshells hasn't worked for me either.

echo $(echo $BASHPID ; exec sleep 10) ; echo $?

This works, but the subshell pipes all of its output to echo, and echo prints it all at once, meaning the $BASHPID doesn't get print until after the sleep finishes. The PID must be print immediately.

Answer 1

When you run, for example:

bash -c "echo $BASHPID ; exec sleep 10"

or

echo $(echo $BASHPID ; exec sleep 10)

your current shell is interpolating the $BASHPID variable before the second bash (or subshell) sees it. The solution is to prevent the expansion of those variables by the current shell:

bash -c 'echo $BASHPID ; exec sleep 10'

Answer 2

That's a shell command you run over ssh already (interpreted by the login shell of the remote user), no need to start another shell on top of that. Assuming that shell is Bourne-like or csh-like:

echo "$$"; exec sleep 10

should be enough. No need to install bash on the remote host. ssh will also report the exit status of the remote command, no need to print it. But if you have to, you can do:

sleep 10 & echo "$!"; wait; echo "$?"

Not for csh-like shells as $? is $status instead there.

If you can't guarantee the login shell of the remote user be Bourne-like, you could do:

exec sh -c 'sleep 10 & echo "$!"; wait; echo "$?"'

That command should be compatible to shells of the Bourne, csh and rc families at least.