supuner

Overview

supuner (SUPpress UNless ERror) executes a command and manipulates its stderr and stdout. By default, it captures both stderr and stdout and only outputs their combined value to stdout if the command fails. supuner is useful for chatty commands whose output is only relevant if the command fails.

Download and docs

• Latest release: supuner-0.2 (2020-02-17)
  • Size: 4057 bytes (3KiB)
  • SHA256: epGiDXtIOFv20SY07Z5P9AWWnWUWsP5e9yfHD2irnFE=
  • Release notes:
    
    • Document that -e sends combined stderr/stdout output to stdout.
    • Error if -e is specified without -o, since the previous behaviour of -e without -o had no use (and mildly surprising semantics).
    • Use the OS's basename program rather than a hand-rolled alternative.
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Usage

supuner [-e] [-o <filename>] <command>

Options:

-e	If -o is specified, then as well as sending output to a file, echo stdout and stderr combined to stdout
-o <filename>	Send stdout and stderr to file.

supuner exits with the exit code of command.

Examples

Here are examples of the basic styles of use of supuner:

$ supuner ls /bin/sh
$ supuner ls /bin/sh /doesntexist
ls: /doesntexist: such file or directory
/bin/sh
$ supuner -o /tmp/o ls /bin/sh /doesntexist
$ echo $?
1
$ cat /tmp/o
ls: /doesntexist: such file or directory
/bin/sh
$ supuner -e -o /tmp/o ls /bin/sh /doesntexist
ls: /doesntexist: such file or directory
/bin/sh
$ echo $?
1
$ cat /tmp/o
ls: /doesntexist: such file or directory
/bin/sh

Using the fact that supuner exits with the exit code of command, one can use the || operator to perform actions on the combined stdout / stderr output, for example:

$ supuner -o /tmp/o ls /bin/sh /doesntexist \
  || mail -s "Error from ls" somebody@example.com < /tmp/o