Redirect stderr and stdout in Bash

Question

I want to redirect both stdout and stderr of a process to a single file. How do I do that in Bash?

Answer 1

bash your_script.sh 1>file.log 2>&1

1>file.log instructs the shell to send STDOUT to the file file.log, and 2>&1 tells it to redirect STDERR (file descriptor 2) to STDOUT (file descriptor 1).

Note: The order matters as liw.fi pointed out, 2>&1 1>file.log doesn't work.

Answer 2

You can redirect stderr to stdout and the stdout into a file:

some_command >file.log 2>&1 

See http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/io-redirection.html

This format is preferred than the most popular &> format that only work in bash. In Bourne shell it could be interpreted as running the command in background. Also the format is more readable 2 (is STDERR) redirected to 1 (STDOUT).

EDIT: changed the order as pointed out in the comments

Answer 3

Short answer: Command >filename 2>&1 or Command &>filename

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Explanation:

Consider the following code which prints the word "stdout" to stdout and the word "stderror" to stderror.

$ (echo "stdout"; echo "stderror" >&2)
stdout
stderror

Note that the '&' operator tells bash that 2 is a file descriptor (which points to the stderr) and not a file name. If we left out the '&', this command would print stdout to stdout, and create a file named "2" and write stderror there.

By experimenting with the code above, you can see for yourself exactly how redirection operators work. For instance, by changing which file which of the two descriptors 1,2, is redirected to /dev/null the following two lines of code delete everything from the stdout, and everything from stderror respectively (printing what remains).

$ (echo "stdout"; echo "stderror" >&2) 1>/dev/null
stderror
$ (echo "stdout"; echo "stderror" >&2) 2>/dev/null
stdout

Now, we can explain why the solution why the following code produces no output:

(echo "stdout"; echo "stderror" >&2) >/dev/null 2>&1

To truly understand this, I highly recommend you read this webpage on file descriptor tables. Assuming you have done that reading, we can proceed. Note that Bash processes left to right; thus Bash sees >/dev/null first (which is the same as 1>/dev/null), and sets the file descriptor 1 to point to /dev/null instead of the stdout. Having done this, Bash then moves rightwards and sees 2>&1. This sets the file descriptor 2 to point to the same file as file descriptor 1 (and not to file descriptor 1 itself!!!! (see this resource on pointers for more info)) . Since file descriptor 1 points to /dev/null, and file descriptor 2 points to the same file as file descriptor 1, file descriptor 2 now also points to /dev/null. Thus both file descriptors point to /dev/null, and this is why no output is rendered.

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To test if you really understand the concept, try to guess the output when we switch the redirection order:

(echo "stdout"; echo "stderror" >&2)  2>&1 >/dev/null

stderror

The reasoning here is that evaluating from left to right, Bash sees 2>&1, and thus sets the file descriptor 2 to point to the same place as file descriptor 1, ie stdout. It then sets file descriptor 1 (remember that >/dev/null = 1>/dev/null) to point to >/dev/null, thus deleting everything which would usually be send to to the standard out. Thus all we are left with was that which was not send to stdout in the subshell (the code in the parentheses)- i.e. "stderror". The interesting thing to note there is that even though 1 is just a pointer to the stdout, redirecting pointer 2 to 1 via 2>&1 does NOT form a chain of pointers 2 -> 1 -> stdout. If it did, as a result of redirecting 1 to /dev/null, the code 2>&1 >/dev/null would give the pointer chain 2 -> 1 -> /dev/null, and thus the code would generate nothing, in contrast to what we saw above.

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Finally, I'd note that there is a simpler way to do this:

From section 3.6.4 here, we see that we can use the operator &> to redirect both stdout and stderr. Thus, to redirect both the stderr and stdout output of any command to \dev\null (which deletes the output), we simply type $ command &> /dev/null or in case of my example:

$ (echo "stdout"; echo "stderror" >&2) &>/dev/null

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Key takeaways:

• File descriptors behave like pointers (although file descriptors are not the same as file pointers)
• Redirecting a file descriptor "a" to a file descriptor "b" which points to file "f", causes file descriptor "a" to point to the same place as file descriptor b - file "f". It DOES NOT form a chain of pointers a -> b -> f
• Because of the above, order matters, 2>&1 >/dev/null is != >/dev/null 2>&1. One generates output and the other does not!

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Finally have a look at these great resources:

Bash Documentation on Redirection, An Explanation of File Descriptor Tables, Introduction to Pointers

Answer 4

The following functions can be used to automate the process of toggling outputs beetwen stdout/stderr and a logfile.

#!/bin/bash

    #set -x

    # global vars
    OUTPUTS_REDIRECTED="false"
    LOGFILE=/dev/stdout

    # "private" function used by redirect_outputs_to_logfile()
    function save_standard_outputs {
        if [ "$OUTPUTS_REDIRECTED" == "true" ]; then
            echo "[ERROR]: ${FUNCNAME[0]}: Cannot save standard outputs because they have been redirected before"
            exit 1;
        fi
        exec 3>&1
        exec 4>&2

        trap restore_standard_outputs EXIT
    }

    # Params: $1 => logfile to write to
    function redirect_outputs_to_logfile {
        if [ "$OUTPUTS_REDIRECTED" == "true" ]; then
            echo "[ERROR]: ${FUNCNAME[0]}: Cannot redirect standard outputs because they have been redirected before"
            exit 1;
        fi
        LOGFILE=$1
        if [ -z "$LOGFILE" ]; then
            echo "[ERROR]: ${FUNCNAME[0]}: logfile empty [$LOGFILE]"

        fi
        if [ ! -f $LOGFILE ]; then
            touch $LOGFILE
        fi
        if [ ! -f $LOGFILE ]; then
            echo "[ERROR]: ${FUNCNAME[0]}: creating logfile [$LOGFILE]"
            exit 1
        fi

        save_standard_outputs

        exec 1>>${LOGFILE%.log}.log
        exec 2>&1
        OUTPUTS_REDIRECTED="true"
    }

    # "private" function used by save_standard_outputs() 
    function restore_standard_outputs {
        if [ "$OUTPUTS_REDIRECTED" == "false" ]; then
            echo "[ERROR]: ${FUNCNAME[0]}: Cannot restore standard outputs because they have NOT been redirected"
            exit 1;
        fi
        exec 1>&-   #closes FD 1 (logfile)
        exec 2>&-   #closes FD 2 (logfile)
        exec 2>&4   #restore stderr
        exec 1>&3   #restore stdout

        OUTPUTS_REDIRECTED="false"
    }

Example of usage inside script:

echo "this goes to stdout"
redirect_outputs_to_logfile /tmp/one.log
echo "this goes to logfile"
restore_standard_outputs 
echo "this goes to stdout"

Answer 5

LOG_FACILITY="local7.notice"
LOG_TOPIC="my-prog-name"
LOG_TOPIC_OUT="$LOG_TOPIC-out[$$]"
LOG_TOPIC_ERR="$LOG_TOPIC-err[$$]"

exec 3>&1 > >(tee -a /dev/fd/3 | logger -p "$LOG_FACILITY" -t "$LOG_TOPIC_OUT" )
exec 2> >(logger -p "$LOG_FACILITY" -t "$LOG_TOPIC_ERR" )

It is related: Writing stdOut & stderr to syslog.

It almost work, but not from xinted ;(

Answer 6

Take a look here. Should be:

yourcommand &>filename

(redirects both stdout and stderr to filename).