Unix in a Nutshell, 4th Edition

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Name

sleep

Synopsis

    sleep seconds

Wait a specified number of seconds before executing another command. Often used in shell scripts. sleep is built in to ksh93.

The GNU/Linux version allows the number to have a suffix: s for seconds (the default), m for minutes, h for hours, and d for days. The value may also be real number, specifying fractional units as well.

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