[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] shell ouput which file descriptor

[Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>]

Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:

>>
>> $cat /tmp/testfile
>> cat: nonexistantfile: No such file or directory
>
> Thanks... 
>
>> Are you running cvs as root, or user, or ...?
>
> I was running cvs as user, and now trying your tests... it appears the
> trouble has stopped... doesn't occur now in cvs cmds either.
>
> There was a reboot in between, so may never now what was going on.
>
> Prior to rebooting I had tried to get a fresh env by ssh
> user@localhost from an xterm.  Hoping to rule out some oddball env
> problem, but the file descriptor problem persisted.  However it has
> apparently not survived a reboot.

Yikes... more mysterious than I reported above.

I see now that I get the goofy acting file descriptors when I'm in
console mode, but not in X.

And it appears only to happen in cvs commands, but again, not in X.

My sequence:

   Reboot just now.

   At console login:

    login and call cvs command:

     cvs -n update /usr/local/common/base 2>er
     
     I see 83 lines scroll by.

    cat er
    cat: er: No such file or directory

    Nothing has been redirected.

    cvs -n update /usr/local/common/base 2>er|wc -l
    
    I still see 83 lines but wc -l reports 0
    (as it should)
    
    So somehow the redirect is ignored and stderr goes to console
    anyway. 

  Trying your test
  cat none 2>er
   
   cat er
   cat: none: No such file or directory

So stderr is doing what it is supposed to do with cat but not a cvs
command. 
-------        ---------       ---=---       ---------      -------- 
Now startx and from an xterm:
   cvs -n update /usr/local/common/base 2>er
   <no output> just like expected

Follow with:
    cat er|wc -l
  83 
  (83 lines of ouput were captured with 2>er)

So this is more puzzling than ever.  Weird phenomena in console that
stops when in X.