how to bring a background job to foreground

Question

in Linux/shell, how can I bring background jobs to foreground and vice versa?

Answer 1

Did you use ctrl+z to send it to the background? If so, you can bring it back to the front with the command

 fg

To get a list of all the background jobs, use

jobs

Answer 2

if you have a list of backgrounded jobs (as seen with the 'jobs' command, you can pick a particular one with

fg % number

where number = job number

e.g.

jobs

[1]    suspended  top
[2]  - suspended  top
[3]  + suspended  top

fg %2