We're designing a shell in the browser that will stream everything that shell outputs. stdout, stderr, anything.
however, just as this little example would demonstrate to you,
git clone https://github.com/joyent/node.git >./git.out
cat ./git.out
most of the output is not given to ./git.out. here is little video, if you want to see what's happening http://screencast.com/t/7zTdPfq7Pr7
We need commands like 'top','git' to work, any ideas how to get them ?
(outputting into a file is for illustration purposes only, we will stream every line of output to another system, we know for top it wouldn't make sense but I hope my point is clear enough for the ones who can provide insight. thanks.)
Best Answer
Most programs have two outputs: stdout and stderr. stdout is where the "main" information goes. stderr is used for, well, errors. It's also used for various non-important output, and also things like user prompts sometimes.
To capture all of it, you need to redirect stderr to stdout.
Or to capture stderr to a seperate file:
Be aware that it IS possible for a program to use other outputs than stdout / stderr. It can determine your console and basically "force" output there. However this is extremely uncommon, and the above will work in 99% of situations.
One thing to keep in mind if you redirect both stdout and stderr to the same file is that stdout and stderr buffer differently, so it won't look the same in a log file as it will on the screen (lines will be out of order). Also, for your specific instance, your output is going to look like garbage. git does a lot of terminal manipulation (for the progress indicator) and in a log file it's going to look pretty awful.
EDIT
From
man git-clone: