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up vote 3 down vote favorite

How can I test whether a command's output is an empty string without interfering with said output? Example:

command | ???
if [ $? = 0 ] && [ -n "$output_from_command"]; then
   ...

I'd like that the output from the code above be the same as when running command.

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3 Answers 3

up vote 4 down vote accepted

You can use the tee command, which accepts input from stdin and writes the output to stdout plus a file. 

command | tee /tmp/out.$$

Then you can test /tmp/out.$$ to see whether it is of zero length or not. (Note that $$ expands to the current pid, which helps avoid similar processes overwriting one another.)

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I think I can tee to /dev/tty and avoid the temp file: out=$(echo 'hi'|tee /dev/tty) –  Ernest A Dec 23 '13 at 21:15
up vote 1 down vote

This seems to work:

#!/bin/bash

OUTPUT="$(echo "foo")"  # replace 'echo "foo"' with your command

if [[ -z "$OUTPUT" ]]; then
   echo "No output."
else
   echo "$OUTPUT"
fi
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1  
Yes, it works, but has the disadvantage that lines are printed all at once, whereas command may print lines at a certain rate. –  Ernest A Dec 23 '13 at 21:17
    
Yeah, if you want to see the output in real time, tee is probably your best bet. –  DopeGhoti Dec 23 '13 at 21:25
1  
That assumes no NUL character in the output, that the output is not -n or -nene... and it will remove the trailing newlines characters (and add one back). –  Stéphane Chazelas Dec 23 '13 at 22:15
up vote 1 down vote 
if the-command | grep '^'; then
  echo the-command output was not empty
fi

(note that the behaviour will vary across grep implementations if the output of the-command is not text (contains NUL characters, doesn't end in a newline character or has abnormally long lines).

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