jobs

display the status of jobs in the current session 

KornShell Built-in


SYNOPSIS

jobs [-lnp] [job-identifier...]


DESCRIPTION

jobs produces a list of the processes in the current session. Each such process is numbered for easy identification by kill and is described by a line of information:

[job-identifier]   default   state   shell_command

job-identifier 

is a decimal number which identifies the process. When you use the job-identifier as an argument to the commands or to jobs, preface the number with %.

default 

identifies the default process (that is, the most recently suspended process). If default is a +, this process is the default job. If default is a -, this job becomes the default when the current default job exits. There is at most one + job and one - job.

state 

shows a job as:

Running 
if it is not suspended and has not exited
Done 
if it exited successfully
Done(exit status) 
if it exited with a non-zero exit status
Stopped (signal
if it is suspended; signal is the signal that suspended the job

shell_command 

is the associated shell command which created the process.

Options

-l 

also displays the process group ID of a job (before state).

-n 

displays jobs that have changed states and free dead jobs.

-p 

displays only the process IDs of all processes.

The -l and -p options are mutually exclusive.


DIAGNOSTICS

Possible exit status values are:

0 

Successful completion.

>0 

The number of job-identifiers that were not found.


PORTABILITY

POSIX.2. x/OPEN Portability Guide 4.0. Windows 10. Windows Server 2016. Windows Server 2019. Windows 11. Windows Server 2022. Windows Server 2025.

jobs is provided as a MKS KornShell built-in only.


NOTE

You cannot use | to pipe output from jobs to another command and get useful results. The jobs reports the status of background jobs in the current shell; however, when you use the pipe operator, jobs is actually run in a new shell, which does not have background jobs, so it cannot report on any. You can, however, use > to redirect jobs output to a file which can then be used as an input file by another command.


AVAILABILITY

PTC MKS Toolkit for Power Users
PTC MKS Toolkit for System Administrators
PTC MKS Toolkit for Developers
PTC MKS Toolkit for Interoperability
PTC MKS Toolkit for Professional Developers
PTC MKS Toolkit for Professional Developers 64-Bit Edition
PTC MKS Toolkit for Enterprise Developers
PTC MKS Toolkit for Enterprise Developers 64-Bit Edition
PTC Windchill Requirements and Validation


SEE ALSO

Commands:
kill, ps


PTC MKS Toolkit 10.5 Documentation Build 40.