andrewstr

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I have this command in a bash script which record MP3 files in real time:
sox -r 44100 -t ossdsp -w -s /dev/dsp -t raw -c 1 - | lame -s 44.1 -x -b 8 -m m --lowpass 5 -q 0 --quiet - $strFileName &

The script is called hourly from crontab so I get regular email with lame's messages. I want so save lame's messages to a log file instead of getting an email. I tried changing the command to:
sox -r 44100 -t ossdsp -w -s /dev/dsp -t raw -c 1 - | lame -s 44.1 -x -b 8 -m m --lowpass 5 -q 0 --quiet - $strFileName >> /root/record.log &
All that happens is that now there is an empty file named record.log but lame's messages still get emailed to me. I also tried editing the crontab and having the script's output redirected to >> /root/record.log but that doesn't work either.

How can I force lame to output its messages to a log file?

ilikejam

Hi.

You might want to try piping std error to your log file, put

2> /root/record.log

at the end of the lame command.

Dave

andrewstr

Dave, thanks for the tip. That does work but it overwrites the file every time.

How can I get it to append to the file? Will command 2>> logfile work?

trickykid

Yeah, the >> should add to the end of the file specified.

Cheers.

andrewstr

Thanks! That worked.

Why is it necessary to use 2> to direct the output? Why doesn't just > work?

stickman

> redirects STOUT to a new location. 2> redirects STERR to a new location.

andrewstr

What is the difference between STOUT and STERR?

stickman

STOUT = standard out
STERR = standard error

It's handy when the program you're running differentiates between "regular" output and "error" output.

andrewstr

Stickman, I understand the difference in the abbreviations but I was wondering why there are 2 types of output and how do you know the difference between the 2. Is the STOUT suposed to be for information and the STERR for error reporting? Is experimentation the only way to tell the difference?

I wonder if lame only uses STERR for it messages because it uses STOUT/STIN for compressed files.

stickman

It's really up to the author to determine what output goes in which direction. Theoretically, only output that from an error condition should go STERR. If it's not obvious what goes where, it may be in the man page for the program.

andrewstr

Doing some "googling," I found this link that is quite helpful:

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prog-Intro-HOWTO-3.html