Timeout implementation using only bash + common linux tools

timeout.sh

function timeout {
  time_limit=$1
  exec_process=$2 # can be a function too

  # Move the parameters to the 2 position
  shift 2

  # create a pidfile for later reading
  pid_file=$(mktemp)


  # This is tricky, it execute the function/process in a subshell, the write the pid to $pid_file
  ($exec_process "$@" & echo $! > $pid_file &)

  # Retrive the pid to a variable and remove it
  pid_function=$(cat $pid_file)
  rm $pid_file

  # Sleep until timeout time
  sleep $time_limit

  # If it's still running after the sleep time, kill it, print a message and then return 1 to indicate a problem
  if kill -0 $pid_function 2>/dev/null; then
    echo "The time limit was reached. Killing the process..."
    kill -9 $pid_function
    return 1
  fi
}

# Testing, this should exec and ends ok, because the time in sleep is lower than the time for timeout

timeout 3 sleep 2

# Testing, this should exec and ends with fail, because the time in sleep is greater than the time for timeout

timeout 2 sleep 3