Using the ‘sleep’ Function in Bash Scripts, with Examples

This article explains the sleep command in Bash/Shell scripts and how and why you might use it.

The sleep command in Bash (and other Linux Shells) pauses execution for a specified amount of time – halting the script for a set number of seconds, minutes, hours, etc.

Why Pause Execution?

Why would you want to pause executing your script?

• Give the user a chance to interrupt an automated action
• Await user input
• Wait for a device to warm up/become available
• Stop text from flying across the screen if you’re trying to read some script output

sleep Syntax

The syntax for the sleep command is as follows:

sleep NUMBER[UNITS]

Note that:

• NUMBER is the units of time you want the script to pause for (defaults to seconds)
  • The number can be a decimal; it doesn’t have to be a whole integer
• UNITS is the unit of time you wish to sleep for.
  • Defaults to seconds
  • Can be one of either s (seconds), m (minutes), h(hours), or d (days)

Example Bash Script for sleep

#!/bin/bash

echo "Hello there!"
sleep 6
echo "It's been 6 seconds since I said 'Hello there!'"
sleep 7m 
echo "It's been 7 minutes and 6 seconds since I said 'Hello there!'"
sleep .5
echo "It's been 7 minutes and 6.5 seconds since I said 'Hello there!'"

What is the ‘#!’ in Linux Shell Scripts?

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