On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 11:50 AM, Ralph Shumaker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> 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.
> >
> > carl
> >
>
> I know that Lan didn't ask this directly, but I think he's wondering why
> only two output channels were implemented. At least *I* am wondering
> that. Why not stout, sterr, and stmisc?
You can have as many channels as you wish, limited only by the
availability of file descriptors. (a small non-negative integer).
Historically the first three channels, 0, 1, and 2, were given names
stdin, stdout, and stderr, respectively. Use of other file
descriptors is not standardized, so to speak.
carl
--
carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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