Re: Bash question: get output as a variable?

[Mart Frauenlob <mart.frauenlob@chello.at>]

On 04.02.2010 23:09, Dotan Cohen wrote:
> I'm scripting a backup solution, the line that does the business looks
> like this:
> 
> tar -zcvf - *  --exclude-from $EXCLUDES  | openssl des3 -salt -k $1 |
> dd of=$(hostname)-$(date +%Y%m%d).tbz
> 
> Because of the "v" flag tar writes to stdout the name of each file
> copied. How can I get that output redirected to a variable, to use
> later in the script?
> 
> Thanks!
> 

After reading many of the follow-ups, I'd suggest something like that:

#!/bin/bash

# create the archive local first, as if you use 'tar -v' and redirection
# of stderr, you will also catch (possible) error messages of tar, not
# only a file list.

tar -czf archive.tgz

# now list the content with 'tar -t'.
# that ensures that we work only with files, which are in the archive.
# you can put it into an array, or if that's not save enough (as the
# array could become quite big and consume a lot of memory) redirect
# the output to a file.

array=( $(tar -tf archive.tgz) )

# or
tar -tf archive.tgz > file.list

# now do whatever work with the file list, either from the array or
# from the file.

: ...

Best regards

Mart