Lan Barnes wrote:
Why why WHY do programmers send informational messages to stderr? It makes it really difficult to script calls to the program that check for errors. What is it about the "err" in stderr that they don't understand?
In addition to what SJS said, sometimes stdout will not work because output may be redirected. An example might be a CGI script where stdout would be redirected to the client browser. In such a case, it's usually not desirable to send error messages to the client, so they are sent to stderr, which is on the local machine. Many GUI apps may not be able to display errors via stdout either, so stderr is used.
stderr is generally the correct place to send error messages. PGA -- Paul G. Allen, BSIT/SE Owner, Sr. Engineer Random Logic Consulting Services www.randomlogic.com -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
