get the bash exit command out of gnome-terminal

Question

from bash, I'd like to kick off a new process in a new terminal, wait till it finishes, and then recover the exit code.

for example, I'd like to do something like this, but actually recover the useful exit codes;

gnome-terminal -e "bash -c \" sleep 2s ; if [ '1' == '1' ] ; then exit 2 ; else exit 3 ; fi \""
echo gnome terminal returns $?

#gnome terminal returns 0

anyone know how?

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 08 '23 at 21:35

I guess I'm a bit late to the party, but for whoever is searching this:
With the --wait option, it waits till the newly opened terminal finishes and you are able to get the exit code.

gnome-terminal --wait -- bash -c 'echo foo; sleep 1; exit 42'; echo $?

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 04 '13 at 18:13

1

Did you ever figure this out? I realize this isn't quite the answer you're looking for, but it could work in a pinch:

$ gnome-terminal -e 'bash -c "bash -c \"exit 5\"; echo $? > \$\?"'
$ cat '$?' 
5

answered Jun 04 '13 at 18:13

Billy

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You're actually writing the exit code to a file? As you said, if you're really in a pinch... – csl Oct 13 '15 at 14:58

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 23 '14 at 11:24

You probably have to rely on a fifo to communicate between the two shells as gnome-terminal does not seem to propagate exit status. This add the benefit of blocking the calling shell while reading the fifo until the result code has been written.

sh$ TMPDIR=$(mktemp -d)
sh$ F=$TMPDIR/fifo
sh$ mkfifo $F
sh$ gnome-terminal -e 'bash -c "bash -c \"exit 5\"; echo $? > '"$F"'"'
sh$ cat $F
5
sh$ rm -rf $TMPDIR

get the bash exit command out of gnome-terminal

3 Answers3