SLEEP(1) | General Commands Manual | SLEEP(1)

# NAME

`sleep` — suspend execution for an interval of time

# SYNOPSIS

`sleep` | seconds

# DESCRIPTION

The `sleep` utility suspends execution for at least the given number of seconds. seconds must be a non-negative decimal value and may contain a fraction.

# ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

`SIGALRM`
  Terminate early, with a zero exit status.

# EXIT STATUS

The `sleep` utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

# EXAMPLES

Wait five seconds before running a command:

`$ sleep 5; echo Hello, World!`

List a file twice per second:

    while ls -l file; do
    	sleep 0.5
    done

# SEE ALSO

at(1)

# STANDARDS

The `sleep` utility is compliant with the IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”) specification.

Support for fractional seconds is an extension to that specification.

# HISTORY

A `sleep` utility first appeared in Version 4 AT&T UNIX.

This implementation of `sleep` first appeared in 4.3BSD-Tahoe.

July 30, 2022 | Debian