shell script execution sequence

[esolve]

I'm debugging a shell script so I add set -x at the beginning a code snippet are as below

tcpdump -i $interface host $ip_addr and 'port 80' -w flash/flash.pcap &
sudo -u esolve firefox /tor_capture/flash.html &
sleep $capture_time

but I noticed that the execution sequence is as below

++ sleep 5
++ sudo -u esolve firefox /tor_capture/flash.html
++ tcpdump -i eth0 host 138.96.192.56 and 'port 80' -w flash/flash.pcap
tcpdump: listening on eth0, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 65535 bytes

so the execution sequence is reversed compared to the command sequence in the script what is wrong with this and how to deal with it? thanks!

[watael]

hi,

when in background commands do not wait for the previous to be finished to start and end, so it might end before.

group commands between curly braces

$ echo "bla bla bla bla bla" & echo "bla" &
bla
bla bla bla bla bla
$ { echo "bla bla bla bla bla"; echo "bla";} &
bla bla bla bla bla
bla