Does anyone have an example of a korn shell scripts kicking of multiple background processes and then using the wait command to get the return code from those processes?

I want to write a program that kicks off multiple Oracle procedures and then wait for the return code before I procede. Thanks.

Here is a section of a script that I am presently working on that loads several sqlldr threads that will each load a section of one data file (no, I can't use direct path ). I save each thread's PID and wait for all of them to finish. I use a sqlplus co-process to obtain load parameters so using "wait" without specifying PIDs wants to wait of the co-process to complete as well, which I cannot do. If I specify all of my PIDs to "wait", it would no wait for all of them to complete. I settled on a loop of my own that tests to see if the PIDs have finished running.

I save my return codes in a log file and parse it and the logs once everything is done to determine just what happed during the parallel load operation.

            # For each of the desired threads
            while [ ${SQLLDR_THREAD_COUNTER} -le ${SQLLDR_THREADS} ]
            do
...
                # Start a sqlldr thread and make it a background task
                {
                    # Run sqlldr task
                    print ${OLS_KEY} |
                              sqlldr ${OLS_USER}@${OLS_SID} \
                                     control=${CTL_FILE} \
                                     data=${UPLOAD_FILE} \
                                     errors=${SQLLDR_ERRORS} \
                                     rows=${SQLLDR_ROWS_IN_BIND_ARRAY} \
                                     bindsize=${SQLLDR_BINDSIZE} \
                                     direct=${SQLLDR_LOAD_USING_DIRECT_PATH} \
                                     silent=header,feedback \
                                     log=${LOG_FILE}_${SQLLDR_SKIP}.log \
                                     bad=${BAD_FILE}_${SQLLDR_SKIP}.bad \
                                     discard=${DSCRD_FILE}_${SQLLDR_SKIP}.dis \
                                     skip=${SQLLDR_SKIP} \
                                     load=${SQLLDR_ROWS_TO_LOAD} > /dev/null 2>&1

                    # Save exit status code in a temp file with all others
                    rc=$?
                    print "${SQLLDR_THREAD_COUNTER}:${rc}" >> ${SQLLDR_PARALLEL_RESULTS_FILE}

...
                } &

                # Save the background process ID
                PID_LIST="$PID_LIST $!,"
                # Compute next thread number
                ((SQLLDR_THREAD_COUNTER += 1 ))
            done

            #wait $PID_LIST
            # Simulate wait command since wait doesn't appear to wait for all
            # PIDs in $PID_LIST
            typeset THREAD_CNT=$(ps -p $(print ${PID_LIST} | tr -d ' ' | nawk '{print substr($0,1,length($0)-1)}') | wc -l)
            while [ $(( THREAD_CNT - 1 )) -gt 0 ]
            do
                update_process_status \
                     ${RUN_ID:-0} \
                     ${P_FN_CD} \
                     "InProgress" \
                     "staging ${FILE_TYPE} - sqlldr - threads still running: $(( THREAD_CNT - 1))" \
                     0
                sleep 2
                THREAD_CNT=$(ps -p $(print ${PID_LIST} | tr -d ' ' | nawk '{print substr($0,1,length($0)-1)}') | wc -l)
            done