Specify one output file and another error file for the whole shell script?

Question

I wish to have one file output.txt to hold all the outputs of my shell script. Similarly, a error.txt file to hold all the errors of my shell script.

I understand that technically, I can achieve this by manually appending >>output.txt to every line that prints out something. However, I feel that very ugly. I vaguely remember something like

#!/bin/sh
#$ -o ./output.txt
#$ -e ./error.txt

echo Hello World!

may work. However, it is somehow not working when I try it out.

So, how can I specify one output file that automatically absorbs all the outputs?

Update

This question may seem like a duplicate of this one. Yet, one difference is that I also wish to separate outputs and errors into two separate files.

This? stackoverflow.com/questions/11229385/… exec > your_log_file 2>&1 You could also run the script like this: ./your_script.sh > output — fedorqui
– fedorqui, Commented Sep 16, 2014 at 8:35
@fedorqui This works perfectly! However, it would be even better if I could separate outputs and errors into two files. :) — Sibbs Gambling
– Sibbs Gambling, Commented Sep 16, 2014 at 8:42

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 11:58:27Z

2

As seen in redirect all output in a bash script when using set -x, you can use this approach:

exec > log_file 2>&1

If you want to specify different files for stdin and stderr, do:

exec 2> log_error 1> log_output

Test

#!/bin/bash

exec 2> error 1> mylog
echo "hello this is this"
ls alsdjflask

and we get...

$ ./a
$ cat mylog 
hello this is this
$ cat error 
ls: cannot access alsdjflask: No such file or directory

edited May 23, 2017 at 11:58

CommunityBot

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answered Sep 16, 2014 at 8:46

fedorqui

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2 Comments

Sibbs Gambling Over a year ago

This is awesome! Thanks a lot for the quick and sweet solution!

fedorqui Over a year ago

You are welcome :) I didn't know about it, so both of us learnt a nice thing today.

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