The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7
IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition
Copyright © 2001-2013 The IEEE and The Open Group

#### NAME

> fg - run jobs in the foreground

#### SYNOPSIS

> ``[UP] fg` [job_id]```

#### DESCRIPTION

> If job control is enabled (see the description of set -m), the fg utility shall move a background job from the current environment (see Shell Execution Environment) into the foreground.

> Using fg to place a job into the foreground shall remove its process ID from the list of those "known in the current shell execution environment''; see Asynchronous Lists.

#### OPTIONS

> None.

#### OPERANDS

> The following operand shall be supported:

> job_id
>   Specify the job to be run as a foreground job. If no job_id operand is given, the job_id for the job that was most recently suspended, placed in the background, or run as a background job shall be used. The format of job_id is described in XBD Job Control Job ID.

#### STDIN

> Not used.

#### INPUT FILES

> None.

#### ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

> The following environment variables shall affect the execution of fg:

> LANG
>   Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null. (See XBD Internationalization Variables for the precedence of internationalization variables used to determine the values of locale categories.)
> LC_ALL
>   If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other internationalization variables.
> LC_CTYPE
>   Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments).
> LC_MESSAGES
>   Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error.
> NLSPATH
>   [XSI] Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES.

#### ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

> Default.

#### STDOUT

> The fg utility shall write the command line of the job to standard output in the following format:

>     "%s\n", <command>

#### STDERR

> The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

#### OUTPUT FILES

> None.

#### EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

> None.

#### EXIT STATUS

> The following exit values shall be returned:

> 0
>   Successful completion.
> >0
>   An error occurred.

#### CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

> If job control is disabled, the fg utility shall exit with an error and no job shall be placed in the foreground.

The following sections are informative.

#### APPLICATION USAGE

> The fg utility does not work as expected when it is operating in its own utility execution environment because that environment has no applicable jobs to manipulate. See the APPLICATION USAGE section for bg. For this reason, fg is generally implemented as a shell regular built-in.

#### EXAMPLES

> None.

#### RATIONALE

> The extensions to the shell specified in this volume of POSIX.1-2008 have mostly been based on features provided by the KornShell. The job control features provided by bg, fg, and jobs are also based on the KornShell. The standard developers examined the characteristics of the C shell versions of these utilities and found that differences exist. Despite widespread use of the C shell, the KornShell versions were selected for this volume of POSIX.1-2008 to maintain a degree of uniformity with the rest of the KornShell features selected (such as the very popular command line editing features).

#### FUTURE DIRECTIONS

> None.

#### SEE ALSO

> Asynchronous Lists, Shell Execution Environment, bg, kill, jobs, wait

> XBD Job Control Job ID, Environment Variables

#### CHANGE HISTORY

> First released in Issue 4.

#### Issue 6

> This utility is marked as part of the User Portability Utilities option.

> The APPLICATION USAGE section is added.

> The JC marking is removed from the SYNOPSIS since job control is mandatory is this version.

End of informative text.

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