Is it possible for bash commands to continue before the result of the previous command?

Question

When running commands from a bash script, does bash always wait for the previous command to complete, or does it just start the command then go on to the next one?

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Answer 1

add '&' at the end of a command to run it parallel. However, it is strange because in your case the second command depends on the final result of the first one. Either use sequential commands or copy to b and c from a like this:

cp /tmp/a /tmp/b &
cp /tmp/a /tmp/c &