Does ampersand also function as line terminator? I know that in bash, the `&` symbol delegates a command to the background, but is it also supposed to double as a special line terminator? To give an example of what I'm referring to, I found this line in < while read a; do echo "FIFO1: $a"; done < /tmp/fifo1 & exec 7> /tmp/fifo1 is the above equivalent to..? while read a; do echo "FIFO1: $a"; done < /tmp/fifo1 & exec 7> /tmp/fifo1 Or is there special significance to these two parts being in the same line?

while read a; do echo "FIFO1: $a"; done < /tmp/fifo1 & exec 7> /tmp/fifo1


is indeed equivalent to


while read a; do echo "FIFO1: $a"; done < /tmp/fifo1 &
exec 7> /tmp/fifo1


`&` acts as a command separator, as well as placing the command preceding it in the background.

Strictly speaking, it acts as a separator for items in a list of commands:

> A `list` is a sequence of one or more pipelines separated by one of the operators ‘`;`’, ‘`&`’, ‘`&&`’, or ‘`||`’, and optionally terminated by one of ‘`;`’, ‘`&`’, or a `newline`.