Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2021 12:33:31 +0100 From: "Alejandro Colomar (man-pages)" <alx.manpages@gmail.com> To: Bernhard Voelker <mail@bernhard-voelker.de>, Alex Henrie <alexhenrie24@gmail.com>, Otto Moerbeek <otto@drijf.net>, Coreutils <coreutils@gnu.org> Cc: Fabrice BAUZAC <noon@mykolab.com>, juli@clockworksquid.com, Jeffrey Walton <noloader@gmail.com>, freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, William Ahern <william@25thandclement.com>, Roman Czyborra <roman@czyborra.com>, oshogbo@freebsd.org, tech@openbsd.org, Christian Groessler <chris@groessler.org>, linux-api@vger.kernel.org, Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>, ed@nuxi.nl, Eric Pruitt <eric.pruitt@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [PATCH v3 (resend)] tee: Add -q, --quiet, --silent option to not write to stdout Message-ID: <d0d1697b-7851-9078-289e-02ef76f3303a@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <d0f93c40-c471-7ef7-fa9a-2f467d775d3e@bernhard-voelker.de> References: <1f8ce444-35e2-56a7-dbd1-34e885372b11@gmail.com> <20210124121845.38293-1-alx.manpages@gmail.com> <YA2ztHUATu1gOxoV@clue.drijf.net> <CAMMLpeSLbWtRrrzOjB6DJgZCem8KWpy7_pWmr6ecuGrSmg4Eng@mail.gmail.com> <d0f93c40-c471-7ef7-fa9a-2f467d775d3e@bernhard-voelker.de>
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On 1/25/21 5:03 AM, Bernhard Voelker wrote: > On 1/24/21 9:01 PM, Alex Henrie wrote: >> I am definitely interested. Bernhard Voelker seemed to express >> interest as well, conditional on -q being added to POSIX first.[1] > > Just to clarify: I'm not as enthusiastic to add that option as it > may have sounded. > > Let me put it like this: if -q once gets standardized by POSIX, > then we'd take it over in the GNU tee implementation. > > Let me summarize so far: > The suggestion is to solve the problem to save some data coming from > a pipe as a different user. > There are at least those known solutions: > - use > or >> redirection. > - use dd(1) > > I have the impression that a home for this feature was searched > in any tool, and as tee(1) already knew how to write to a file, > had the "append" feature, and is often used in pipes, it was > tempting to add it there. > > But looking deeper, --quiet doesn't seem to fit well into 'tee'. > It even contradicts to the title line in the man page: > "read from standard input and write to standard output and files" > > An off-tech argument: ask a local plumber if he'd would ever use > a tee piece instead of a pipe end piece. I guess he would only > if he wouldn't have anything else at hand. I never knew what 'tee' meant. That makes sense now. > > A word to the proposed patch: what should happen, if the user does > not give a file? > A | B | tee -q > The patch just silently ignored that situation which feels wrong. > > Therefore, adding a feature which does not really fit is wrong, and > contradicts the one-tool-for-one-purpose UNIX philosophy. > Agreed. > OTOH I understand that there's a little gap in the tool landscape. > Astonishingly, there doesn't seem to exist a trivial tool to redirect > from standard input (or any other input file descriptor) to a file. > I wrote such a little tool in the attached: > > $ src/sink --help > Usage: src/sink [OPTION]... FILE > Copy input stream to FILE. > > Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too. > > -a, --append append to the given FILE, do not overwrite > -c, --create ensure to create FILE, error if exists > -i, --input-stream=FD read from stream FD instead of standard input > > The default input stream number FD is 0, representing the standard input. > > This allows not only to copy data from standard input, but from any > file descriptor open for reading. It also allows control over > how the output file will be opened (e.g. with O_CREAT|E_EXCL). > > The OPs case would look like: > > echo 'foo' | sudo sink /etc/foo > or > echo 'foo' | sudo sink -a /etc/foo # append. > or > echo 'foo' | sudo sink -c /etc/foo # ensure creation of the file. > > I'm not sure if this will ever be considered for inclusion - > I just did it "for fun". ;-) Tested-by: Alejandro Colomar <alx.manpages@gmail.com> Reviewed-by: Alejandro Colomar <alx.manpages@gmail.com> Much better than my patch. :-) > > Have a nice day, > Berny > Have a nice day! Alex -- Alejandro Colomar Linux man-pages comaintainer; https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/ http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/
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