[shell] Check if program is running with bash shell script?

You can achieve almost everything in PROCESS_NUM with this one-liner:

[ `pgrep $1` ] && return 1 || return 0

if you're looking for a partial match, i.e. program is named foobar and you want your $1 to be just foo you can add the -f switch to pgrep:

[[ `pgrep -f $1` ]] && return 1 || return 0

Putting it all together your script could be reworked like this:

#!/bin/bash

check_process() {
  echo "$ts: checking $1"
  [ "$1" = "" ]  && return 0
  [ `pgrep -n $1` ] && return 1 || return 0
}

while [ 1 ]; do 
  # timestamp
  ts=`date +%T`

  echo "$ts: begin checking..."
  check_process "dropbox"
  [ $? -eq 0 ] && echo "$ts: not running, restarting..." && `dropbox start -i > /dev/null`
  sleep 5
done

Running it would look like this:

# SHELL #1
22:07:26: begin checking...
22:07:26: checking dropbox
22:07:31: begin checking...
22:07:31: checking dropbox

# SHELL #2
$ dropbox stop
Dropbox daemon stopped.

# SHELL #1
22:07:36: begin checking...
22:07:36: checking dropbox
22:07:36: not running, restarting...
22:07:42: begin checking...
22:07:42: checking dropbox

Hope this helps!