#! /usr/bin/env bash
set -o monitor
# means: run background processes in a separate processes...
trap add_next_job CHLD
# execute add_next_job when we receive a child complete signal
todo_array=($(find . -type f)) # places output into an array
index=0
max_jobs=2
function add_next_job {
# if still jobs to do then add one
if [[ $index -lt ${#todo_array[*]} ]]
# apparently stackoverflow doesn't like bash syntax
# the hash in the if is not a comment - rather it's bash awkward way of getting its length
then
echo adding job ${todo_array[$index]}
do_job ${todo_array[$index]} &
# replace the line above with the command you want
index=$(($index+1))
fi
}
function do_job {
echo "starting job $1"
sleep 2
}
# add initial set of jobs
while [[ $index -lt $max_jobs ]]
do
add_next_job
done
# wait for all jobs to complete
wait
echo "done"
Having said that Fredrik makes the excellent point that xargs does exactly what you want...
