bash: start multiple chained commands in background

Question

I\'m trying to run some commands in paralel, in background, using bash. Here\'s what I\'m trying to do:

forloop {
  //this part is actually written in perl
          


        

Answer 1

Thanks Hugh, that did it:

adrianp@frost:~$ (echo "started"; sleep 15; echo "stopped")
started
stopped
adrianp@frost:~$ (echo "started"; sleep 15; echo "stopped") &
started
[1] 7101
adrianp@frost:~$ stopped

[1]+  Done                    ( echo "started"; sleep 15; echo "stopped" )
adrianp@frost:~$ 

The other ideas don't work because they start each command in the background, and not the command sequence (which is important in my case!).

Thank you again!