Bash: Wait for the current command to complete, but not start any more commands

Question

I've copied a list of several long-running commands into bash shell and pressed Enter. The commands are now being executed sequentially.

For example:

train_agi.sh
find_meaning_of_life.sh
destroy_universe.sh

Now I want the current command to complete, but the subsequent commands to be aborted.

What would be the best way to accomplish this? I was thinking about terminating the shell, but I'm not sure.

Answer 1

You should be able to suspend all the commands, using Ctrl+Z as many times as there are queued commands, then kill the ones that you do not wish to run. You can then resume the first command by placing its job back in the foreground using fg (or background using bg, if you prefer).

To illustrate:

$ /bin/sleep 300 ; /bin/sleep 200 ; /bin/sleep 100
^Z
[1]+  Stopped                 /bin/sleep 300
^Z
[2]+  Stopped                 /bin/sleep 200
^Z
[3]+  Stopped                 /bin/sleep 100
steeldriver@DESKTOP-SPDO14V:~$
steeldriver@DESKTOP-SPDO14V:~$ jobs
[1]   Stopped                 /bin/sleep 300
[2]-  Stopped                 /bin/sleep 200
[3]+  Stopped                 /bin/sleep 100
steeldriver@DESKTOP-SPDO14V:~$
steeldriver@DESKTOP-SPDO14V:~$ kill %2 %3
[2]-  Terminated              /bin/sleep 200
[3]+  Terminated              /bin/sleep 100
steeldriver@DESKTOP-SPDO14V:~$
steeldriver@DESKTOP-SPDO14V:~$ fg %1
/bin/sleep 300
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