Bound a command execution time.

Linux Commands: Use timeout and handle status 124 as an expected time limit.

if timeout 0.1s sleep 5; then
  printf 'Completed\n'
else
  status=$?
  if [ "$status" -eq 124 ]; then printf 'Timed out\n'; else exit "$status"; fi
fi

Expected output EXAMPLE

Timed out

Details

Run in Bash on GNU/Linux in a scratch directory. Tested with the GNU utilities supplied by Ubuntu. Use timeout and handle status 124 as an expected time limit.

✓ Verified

Tested on Ubuntu 24.04.5 LTS · 2026-11-02 18:01:37 UTC · GNU bash, version 5.2.21(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) · bash 5.2.21-2ubuntu4; coreutils 9.4-3ubuntu6.3

Test inputs, results and environment

The exact published code ran in a dedicated Linux test container with prepared inputs. Unprivileged snippet process, external networking disabled, read-only root filesystem, and a fresh temporary working directory. Fixtures and output records are isolated from the application database. Testing covers this example and its stated checks, not every input, operating system, or runtime version. The Linux container shares its host's kernel; this is not a native Windows test.

Architecture / host kernel: x86_64 / 6.18.54.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2
Snippet identity / locale: uid=65534, gid=65534 (unprivileged) / C.UTF-8
Interpreter invocation: bash -euo pipefail -c <published code>
Container image ID: sha256:32dc2d998158b6554c99b73b533f423696a0f3e31e8cbea9db10b5eee9a2fadd
Code SHA-256: 7a830b4f30fe8d0428e53937fa94afbc8affbd9e390625cfb6bbee521cf17b19
Dependencies: bash 5.2.21-2ubuntu4; coreutils 9.4-3ubuntu6.3

Test input setup

These are the prepared inputs used by the test harness. See Details above for the prerequisites and how to run this example.

# No input files required.

Observed standard output

Timed out

Exit code: 0. Standard error: empty. Validation: Exact stdout comparison. System-dependent values above are one recorded run.