ok never mind about that last post. it does appear to be pipe commands
for standard out and standard err and that shouldn't result in
backgrounding.

On 11/19/06, Giles Bowkett <gilesb / gmail.com> wrote:
> > That depends on what you put between the back-ticks.
> >
> > This:
> >
> > `command > /dev/null &`
> >
> > will almost certainly fork. There are any number of forking contingencies,
> > depending on what you try to run, and how.
>
> well, that's probably it. the command I'm using is a very long,
> involved command to a complex utility that handles media files, and
> apparently takes an infinite number of command-line arguments, but the
> final args are "2>&1". I inherited this code, as I understand it that
> just pipes standard error and standard out to the same place --
> however, now I think that might be what's going wrong.
>
> --
> Giles Bowkett
> http://www.gilesgoatboy.org
>


-- 
Giles Bowkett
http://www.gilesgoatboy.org