How to save multiple $! into variables and use it later in bash?

Question

I want to get the pids of two background processes,

sleep 20 & pid1=$\\!; sleep 10 & pid2=$\\!; echo \"pid1: $pid1, pid2: $pid2\"

and

Answer 1

The backslash is causing the value to be the string $! verbatim. Don't put a backslash in the assignment.

On the command line, you may want to temporarily set +H to avoid getting event not found warnings; but this only affects the interactive shell. In a script, set -H is never active (and would be meaningless anyway).

(I'm speculating this is the reason you put the backslash there in the first place. If not, simply just take it out.)