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diagram showing where stdout and stderr usually go, vs. when you use redirects. If you redirect stderr to stdout first, it goes to the original stdout location. If you redirect it second (after the file redirect), it follows stdout to the new location.

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diagram showing where stdout and stderr usually go, vs. when you use redirects. If you redirect stderr to stdout first, it goes to the original stdout location. If you redirect it second (after the file redirect), it follows stdout to the new location.
https://xoxo-media.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/053/184/832/302/554/original/f185a9f454d699a1.png

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Annika Backstrom (annika@xoxo.zone)'s status on Saturday, 31-Aug-2024 06:51:51 JST Annika Backstrom

`cmd > file.txt 2>&1` vs `cmd 2>&1 > file.txt` always tripped me up: the first form is what I usually want (send both to file.txt) but always felt backwards to my brain.
Prompted by Julia, I read up on https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Redirections.html and tried to understand why the first incantation sends both outputs to file.txt
Also TIL zsh "MULTIOS" which sends stdout to your pipe even if you've redirected to a file.

In conversation about 7 months ago from xoxo.zone permalink