On Wed 07 Apr 2021 at 21:46:30 (+0000), Lee wrote: > On 4/7/21, Marco Ippolito <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Where I want output, I protect it with: > >> > >> [ -n "$PS1" ] && printf … > > > > Maybe consider: > > > > [[ -t 1 ]] && printf ... > > Until your script that was started via crontab silently fails. I > *like* always having error messages enabled.
Here's the context, from Greg, again: > Writing error messages to stdout from a .profile isn't generally the > best idea. Writing to stderr would be slightly better, but both of > them should be avoided in a permanent configuration if possible. Profiles > that scribble to stdout or stderr during login can break things like scp. Agreed, you certainly don't want that to happen when they're doing their job non-interactively, because it could have major consequential effects. > As a *temporary* debugging measure, it's fine. My start-up files, .bash_profile, .bashrc, and other files that they source, contain permanent printf commands. When they finish printing their output, the next thing that's going to happen is that the shell will emit a prompt. So there's a certain elegance in using that very prompt as the condition. The thread, and my comment, was about the topic under discussion, startup files, not scripts in general. Using PS1 as a condition in the latter is unlikely to make much sense at all. Cheers, David.
