Screencast: File redirection in the unix shell

Mar 19, 2014 • Sheldon McKay

Command line programs in unix-like operating systems typically print their standard output (STDOUT) and standard error (STDERR) streams to the terminal screen. This screencast provides a basic introduction on how to capture STDOUT and STDERR and redirect them to files. The intended audience for this screencast is novice-level users who need to know how to open a terminal window and how to enter commands but not much else.

I had originally intended to cover both pipes and redirection in the screencast but I decided that it was too much to cover at a reasonable pace in three minutes. I also decided to leave out redirection of standard input (STDIN) to programs because it is much less commonly encountered in the wild, at least by me.  I hope I did not take the process of content reduction too far.

I know the audio is on the quiet side but I could not figure out how to adjust and my screencast was late enough as it was!

Introduction to STDOUT, STDERR and file redirection in the unix shell from Sheldon McKay on Vimeo.