Bash: Redirect stdout/stderr to file, then back to screen?

[Mudgen]

It's simple to redirect stdout and/or stderr to a file from within a script with, e.g. "exec 1>/tmp/outfile 2>&1". But if I want later in the script to return one or both to default (the screen), is there a way to do that?

[atreyu]

How about this?

#!/bin/bash

exec 1>/tmp/logfile.txt 2>&1
echo hi logfile
echo errors to logfile too >&2

exec >/dev/tty 2>&1
echo hi tty
echo errors to tty too >&2

Edit: see this informative stackoverflow thread

[Mudgen]

Thanks much, Atreyu. I'm scripting to do CIS Red Hat EL5 benchmark hardening on our installed base, and I'm seeing spots from writing awk expressions for days. /dev/tty had plumb eluded me.

[atreyu]

Thanks much, Atreyu. I'm scripting to do CIS Red Hat EL5 benchmark hardening on our installed base, and I'm seeing spots from writing awk expressions for days.

heh, i've been in similar Perl sand-storms.

/dev/tty had plumb eluded me.

it had eluded me too. i was thinking that you could use the output of the tty command (e.g., /dev/pts/1) to do that, but that led me to the SO link and the /dev/tty trick.