Run Command Silent in Bash?

[RobinVossen]

Well I run a command in my bashscript using $(COMMAND)
Is there a way to make the program not give ANY output.
For example I give tar a file that isnt a tar file.
Then it give the error. Its not a tar file. And Aborts
Its fine with me that he aborts. but that output is anoying since I dont want to see that.
So I look in the man page of tar and there isnt a Quite Function.
So, I thought can I maybe do it in another way like:
$(COMMAND) >> /dev/null
or silent($(COMMAND))

I tryed the first one, but not the second one (since thats just rubbish)
Anyhow, is there a way to do something like this?

Thanks,
Cheers,
Robin

[wje_lf]

I don't think you want the command to give no output, because the

$(COMMAND)

construct is used to collect standard output from the command. For example, when I run this script:

#!/bin/bash

aaa=$(date | rev)
echo $aaa $aaa

I get something like:

8002 TSP 20:20:30 51 naJ euT 8002 TSP 20:20:30 51 naJ euT

I think what you want (correct me if I'm wrong) is that standard output should go to the variable, but standard error should be thrown away.

In that case, do something like this:

aaa=$(date | rev 2> /dev/null)

Hope this helps.

[RobinVossen]

Umm, sorry I think I need to do more explaination.
When I run my script now with the wrong password I get:

bad decrypt
1349:error:<number>:error explain
tar: This does not look like a tar archive
tar: Skipping to next header
tar: Error Exit delayed from previous errors
Wrong Passphrase

And this part of my script does that:

 echo "Enter Passphrase"
 read -s PASSWORD
 $(openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc -salt -in $1 -out container.tar -pass pass:$PASSWORD)
 $(tar -xf container.tar)
 shred -zu container.tar
 if [[ -d container ]]; then
           rm -rf .container
           echo "Succesfully Decrypted"
else
            echo "   Wrong Passphrase"
fi

The Error is a openSSL error that is Hardcoded in the OpenSSL Package to give. (I guess using printf but I guess thats not the point)

Anyhow, Id there a way to make openssl shutup?
and tar as well.

[thedondj]

As wje_lf suggested, if you redirect the output to a file then it will not appear on the command line. If you redirect to /dev/null then the output will be thrown away. There are two sets of output for any program, output 1 gives the standard output and output 2 gives the error output.

So

openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc -salt -in $1 -out container.tar -pass pass:$PASSWORD 1>/dev/null

or just

openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc -salt -in $1 -out container.tar -pass pass:$PASSWORD >/dev/null

Will give you no standard output

openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc -salt -in $1 -out container.tar -pass pass:$PASSWORD 2>/dev/null

Will give you no error output.

To get neither is a bit different you need to redirect standard output to dev/null then redirect error output to standard output (not the other way around):

openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc -salt -in $1 -out container.tar -pass pass:$PASSWORD >/dev/null 2>&1

Incidentally are you intending to run the output of the commands?

$(tar -xf container.tar)

Will untar your file and then try to run the output of the command as a new command. To untar the file you would just need:

tar -xf container.tar

[RobinVossen]

Well, ">/dev/null 2>&1" worked for the OpenSSL one.
Now I run the command aswell on the tar -xf but now my script just crashes.
Anyhow I tryed to Nck everything to Oblivion before with > /dev/null but it just doesnt work.

Anyhow, why does my script crash when I did use the >/dev/null 2&>1
twice?

Cheers,
Thanks

[thedondj]

Are you still using this?

$(tar -xf container.tar >/dev/null 2>&1)

What this will do will be to run the command:

tar -xf container.tar >/dev/null 2>&1

And then attempt to run the output because of the $(). The original command won't produce any output which will probably cause an error when trying to execute the empty second command.

Using the redirects twice should not cause your script to crash, could you post your code again?

[RobinVossen]

I use the second one.
Ill try to add $() and then ill report it.

Cheers,
Robin

Edit:

$(openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc -salt -in $1 -out container.tar -pass pass:$PASSWORD >/dev/null 2>&1)
$(tar -xf container.tar >/dev/null 2>&1)

[thedondj]

What's the error message?

Again I don't understand why you're using the $(...) syntax, is there a good reason for this? Why are you using:

$(openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc -salt -in $1 -out container.tar -pass pass:$PASSWORD >/dev/null 2>&1)
$(tar -xf container.tar >/dev/null 2>&1)

instead of

openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc -salt -in $1 -out container.tar -pass pass:$PASSWORD >/dev/null 2>&1
tar -xf container.tar >/dev/null 2>&1

[RobinVossen]

Since I tryed both
It doesnt matter

[wje_lf]

Actually, it does matter. It matters because you're going to try variations until you find something that works. If you try those same variations on the $(...) syntax, it's guaranteed to fail, so why do the extra (possibly misleading) work?

It also matters because it's important for future work that you understand what $(...) is supposed to do.

So, once again: Leaving out the $(...) stuff, can you show us your exact script and what output you get?