How do you run multiple programs in parallel from a bash script?

Question

I am trying to write a .sh file that runs many programs simultaneously

I tried this

prog1 
prog2

Answer 1

With bashj ( https://sourceforge.net/projects/bashj/ ) , you should be able to run not only multiple processes (the way others suggested) but also multiple Threads in one JVM controlled from your script. But of course this requires a java JDK. Threads consume less resource than processes.

Here is a working code:

#!/usr/bin/bashj

#!java

public static int cnt=0;

private static void loop() {u.p("java says cnt= "+(cnt++));u.sleep(1.0);}

public static void startThread()
{(new Thread(() ->  {while (true) {loop();}})).start();}

#!bashj

j.startThread()

while [ j.cnt -lt 4 ]
do
  echo "bash views cnt=" j.cnt
  sleep 0.5
done