Is it possible to parse standard error without writing out to a file first?

Question

In a simple case, let say we have some standard error:

$ ls /fake/file
ls: /fake/file: No such file or directory

QUESTION: Is it possible to parse out "/fake/file" from the standard error without having to write it out to a file first? For example:

$ ls /fake/file 2> tmp.file; sed 's/.* \(.*\):.*/\1/' tmp.file
/fake/file

Many ways described here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2342826/how-to-pipe-stderr-and-not-stdout — stellarhopper, Jan 15 '14 at 01:03

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 15 '14 at 01:03

1

Something like this?

ls /fake/file 2>&1 | awk -F: '{print $2}'

answered Jan 15 '14 at 01:03

ahamed101

The parsing is not exactly correct, but this: `ls /fake/file 2>&1` is what I was looking for. Thanks! – csiu Jan 15 '14 at 02:00

MajorBlackViking · Answer 2 · 2014-01-15T01:32:59.720

0

either way should fetch you the filename

ls /fake/file 2>&1 | awk -F: '{print $2}' | awk '{print $3}'

or

ls /fake/file 2>&1 | awk '{print $4}' | awk -F: '{print $1}'

or

ls /fake/file 2>&1 | sed 's/.* \(.*\):.*/\1/'

edited Jan 15 '14 at 01:32

answered Jan 15 '14 at 01:27

MajorBlackViking

I don't think the two `awk` solutions work how you expect. – Reinstate Monica Please Jan 15 '14 at 02:45

2 Answers2