Linux – How do I run pkill when invoking the shell to execute a string of commands?

To automate system administration tasks, I wrote down the following shell line of code:

bash -c 'pkill -TERM -f java; true'

The problem is that pkill kills bash immediately after the pkill command executes, so subsequent commands have no chance to execute.

Except that they are divided into two lines:

bash -c 'pkill -TERM -f java'
bash -c 'true'

Are there any other workarounds?

If you want to kill all Java processes, just remove -f:

bash -c 'pkill -TERM java; true'

If you really want to kill non-java processes, such as mplayer "jungle_gremlins_of_java.avi“, the typical “solution” is to rewrite commands so that the pattern does not match itself:

bash -c 'pkill -TERM -f "[j]ava"; true'