21

I'd like to send stdout from one process to the stdin of another process, but also to the console. Sending stdout to stdout+stderr, for instance.

For example, I've got git edit aliased to the following:

git status --short | cut -b4- | xargs gvim --remote

I'd like the list of filenames to be sent to the screen as well as to xargs.

So, is there a tee-like utility that'll do this? So that I can do something like:

git status --short | \
    cut -b4- | almost-but-not-quite-entirely-unlike-tee | \
    xargs gvim --remote
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3 Answers 3

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18

tee can duplicate to the current console by using tee /dev/tty

git status --short | cut -b4- | tee /dev/tty | xargs gvim --remote

Alteratively, you can use /dev/stdoutor /dev/stderr but they could be redirected if your command is within a script. Note that /dev/tty will always be the console (and may not exist in a non-interactive shell). This is wrong, read the comments.

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5
  • 1
    Indeed, in the pipeline you show /dev/stdout is redirected. That is, if you were using tee /dev/stdout the effect would be that everything is sent to xargs twice, and nothing goes to the terminal.
    – celtschk
    Apr 30, 2014 at 14:37
  • /dev/stdout is not redirected by a pipe, it will stay the current process standard output. However, if you encapsulate the command in a script and then redirect the stdout of this script, then /dev/stdout will be redirected. In an interactive console, tee /dev/tty and tee /dev/stdout has the same effect, even when using pipes.
    – Vincent Robert
    Apr 30, 2014 at 17:24
  • If you don't believe me, start your shell and type echo foo | tee /dev/stdout | tr f b and echo foo | tee /dev/tty | tr f b. Here's a hint for you: It is tee which interprets the /dev/stdout as file name.
    – celtschk
    Apr 30, 2014 at 17:31
  • 2
    You are right, I do not know how I missed that. I did some tests in my own shell with tty and stdout and I do somehow missed that. Thanks for the clarification, I removed the wrong statement.
    – Vincent Robert
    Apr 30, 2014 at 18:05
  • Well, given that stderr is not affected by the pipe, you would not have needed to remove that (of course the script redirection caveat remains, but for a script, redirectability would generally be a desired property).
    – celtschk
    Apr 30, 2014 at 19:07
8

A more general solution than /dev/tty:

start cmd:> echo foo | tee /dev/stderr 
foo
foo
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2
3

You can use tee command, just feed it with STDERR file, as example:

tee /dev/stderr
tee /proc/self/fd/2

so in that case your alias maybe:

git status --short | \
    cut -b4- | tee /dev/stderr | \
    xargs gvim --remote
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1
  • 1
    I think you mean /proc/self/fd/2
    – celtschk
    Apr 30, 2014 at 19:09

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