Bash script how to sleep in new process then execute a command

Question

So, I was wondering if there was a bash command that lets me fork a process which sleeps for several seconds, then executes a command.

Here's an example:

sleep 30 'echo executing...' & 

^This doesn't actually work (because the sleep command only takes the time argument), but is there something that could do something like this? So, basically, a sleep command that takes a time argument and something to execute when the interval is completed? I want to be able to fork it into a different process then continue processing the shell script.

Also, I know I could write a simple script that does this, but due to some restraints to the situation (I'm actually passing this through a ssh call), I'd rather not do that.

Answer 1

You can do

(sleep 30 && command ...)& 

Using && is safer than ; because it ensures that command ... will run only if the sleep timer expires.