Execute a shell function with timeout

Question

Why would this work

timeout 10s echo \"foo bar\" # foo bar

but this wouldn\'t

function echoFooBar {
  echo \"foo bar\"
}

e         


        

Answer 1

Putting my comment to Tiago Lopo's answer into more readable form:

I think it's more readable to impose a timeout on the most recent subshell, this way we don't need to eval a string and the whole script can be highlighted as shell by your favourite editor. I simply put the commands after the subshell with eval has spawned into a shell-function (tested with zsh, but should work with bash):

timeout_child () {
    trap -- "" SIGTERM
    child=$!
    timeout=$1
    (
            sleep $timeout
            kill $child
    ) &
    wait $child
}

Example usage:

( while true; do echo -n .; sleep 0.1; done) & timeout_child 2

And this way it also works with a shell function (if it runs in the background):

 print_dots () {
     while true
     do
         sleep 0.1
         echo -n .
     done
 }


 > print_dots & timeout_child 2
 [1] 21725
 [3] 21727
 ...................[1]    21725 terminated  print_dots
 [3]  + 21727 done       ( sleep $timeout; kill $child; )