Run / Close Programs over and over again - bash

Question

Is there a way I can write a simple script to run a program, close that program about 5 seconds later, and then repeat?
I just want to be able to run a program that I wrote over and over again but to do so Id have to close it like 5 seconds after running it.
Thanks!

Answer 1

If your command is non-interactive (requires no user interaction):
Launch your program in the background with control operator &, which gives you access to its PID (process ID) via $!, by which you can kill the running program instance after sleeping for 5 seconds:
#!/bin/bash
# Start an infinite loop.
# Use ^C to abort.
while :; do
# Launch the program in the background.
/path/to/your/program &
# Wait 5 seconds, then kill the program (if still alive).
sleep 5 && { kill $! && wait $!; } 2>/dev/null
done
If your command is interactive:
More work is needed if your command must run in the foreground to allow user interaction: then it is the command to kill the program after 5 seconds that must run in the background:
#!/bin/bash
# Turn on job control, so we can bring a background job back to the
# foreground with `fg`.
set -m
# Start an infinite loop.
# CAVEAT: The only way to exit this loop is to kill the current shell.
# Setting up an INT (^C) trap doesn't help.
while :; do
# Launch program in background *initially*, so we can reliably
# determine its PID.
# Note: The command line being set to the bakground is invariably printed
# to stderr. I don't know how to suppress it (the usual tricks
# involving subshells and group commands do not work).
/path/to/your/program &
pid=$! # Save the PID of the background job.
# Launch the kill-after-5-seconds command in the background.
# Note: A status message is invariably printed to stderr when the
# command is killed. I don't know how to suppress it (the usual tricks
# involving subshells and group commands do not work).
{ (sleep 5 && kill $pid &) } 2>/dev/null
# Bring the program back to the foreground, where you can interact with it.
# Execution blocks until the program terminates - whether by itself or
# by the background kill command.
fg
done

Answer 2

Check out the watch command. It will let you run a program repeatedly monitoring the output. Might have to get a little fancy if you need to kill that program manually after 5 seconds.
https://linux.die.net/man/1/watch
A simple example:
watch -n 5 foo.sh

Answer 3

To literally answer your question:
Run 10 times with sleep 5:
#!/bin/bash
COUNTER=0
while [ $COUNTER -lt 10 ]; do
# your script
sleep 5
let COUNTER=COUNTER+1
done
Run continuously:
#!/bin/bash
while [ 1 ]; do
# your script
sleep 5
done

Answer 4

If there is no input on the code, you can simply do
#!/bin/bash
while [ 1 ]
do
./exec_name
if [ $? == 0 ]
then
sleep 5
fi
done