Bash – Timeout function return value

If GNU timeout is not available you can use expect (Mac OS X, BSD, ... do not usually have GNU tools and utilities by default).

################################################################################
# Executes command with a timeout
# Params:
#   $1 timeout in seconds
#   $2 command
# Returns 1 if timed out 0 otherwise
timeout() {

    time=$1

    # start the command in a subshell to avoid problem with pipes
    # (spawn accepts one command)
    command="/bin/sh -c \"$2\""

    expect -c "set echo \"-noecho\"; set timeout $time; spawn -noecho $command; expect timeout { exit 1 } eof { exit 0 }"    

    if [ $? = 1 ] ; then
        echo "Timeout after ${time} seconds"
    fi

}

Edit Example:

timeout 10 "ls ${HOME}"

You can do this by using a temporary directory.

# Create a temporary directory to store the statuses
dir=$(mktemp -d)

# Execute the backgrouded code. Create a file that contains the exit status.
# The filename is the PID of this group's subshell.
for i in 1 2; do
    { ssh mysql "/root/test$i.sh" ; echo "$?" > "$dir/$BASHPID" ; } &
done

# Wait for all jobs to complete
wait

# Get return information for each pid
for file in "$dir"/*; do
    printf 'PID %d returned %d\n' "${file##*/}" "$(<"$file")"
done

# Remove the temporary directory
rm -r "$dir"