On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 10:16 AM, Lan Barnes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, March 25, 2008 10:12 am, Carl Lowenstein wrote:
> > On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 9:40 AM, Lan Barnes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >>
> >> On Tue, March 25, 2008 6:58 am, Paul G. Allen wrote:
> >> > 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
> >>
> >> I don't think I made myself clear. Yes, errors should go to stderr.
> >> What
> >> I'm complaining about is when "hey, everything's going great :-)"
> >> messages
> >> are sent to stderr, making error checking in my calling scripts a joke.
> >>
> >
> > You don't want "everything's going great" messages to get mixed in
> > with the standard output, do you? Strange stuff in the output, which
> > in principle might be piped to another program, is worse than strange
> > stuff in the error messages.
> >
>
> As has already been remarked by me, you, and others on this thread,
> silence is a perfectly adequate "everything's going great" message. And if
> not, -V or (for rpm), -h can give reassuring and educational ourput to
> stdout.
>
> To repeat the subject line, "Sending anything but errors to stderr sucks."
>
To paraphrase the subject line, "Sending anything but normal output to
stdout sucks."
So that leaves us with the necessity to devise some other output
channel for the feelgood messages.
carl
--
carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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