Recipe 8.19. Program: tctee

8.19. Program: tctee

Not all systems support the classic tee program for splitting output pipes to multiple destinations. This command sends the output from someprog to /tmp/output and to the mail pipe beyond.

% someprog | tee /tmp/output | Mail -s 'check this' user@host.org

This program helps not only users who aren't on Unix systems and don't have a regular tee. It also helps those who are, because it offers features not found on other version of tee.

The four flag arguments are -i to ignore interrupts, -a to append to output files, -u for unbuffered output, and -n to omit copying the output on to standard out.

Because this program uses Perl's magic open, you can specify pipes as well as files.

% someprog | tctee f1 "|cat -n" f2 ">>f3"

That sends the output from someprog to the files f1 and f2, appends it to f3, sends a copy to the program cat -n, and also produces the stream on standard output.

The program in Example 8.8 is one of many venerable Perl programs written nearly a decade ago that still runs perfectly well. If written from scratch now, we'd probably use strict, warnings, and ten to thirty thousand lines of modules. But if it ain't broke . . .

Example 8.8: tctee

#!/usr/bin/perl
# tctee - clone that groks process tees 
# perl3 compatible, or better.

while ($ARGV[0] =~ /^-(.+)/ && (shift, ($_ = $1), 1)) {
    next if /^$/;
    s/i// && (++$ignore_ints, redo);
    s/a// && (++$append,      redo);
    s/u// && (++$unbuffer,    redo);
    s/n// && (++$nostdout,    redo);
    die "usage tee [-aiun] [filenames] ...\n";
}

if ($ignore_ints) {
    for $sig ('INT', 'TERM', 'HUP', 'QUIT') { $SIG{$sig} = 'IGNORE'; }
}

$SIG{'PIPE'} = 'PLUMBER';
$mode = $append ? '>>' : '>';
$fh = 'FH000';

unless ($nostdout) {
    %fh = ('STDOUT', 'standard output'); # always go to stdout
    }

$| = 1 if $unbuffer;

for (@ARGV) {
    if (!open($fh, (/^[^>|]/ && $mode) . $_)) {
        warn "$0: cannot open $_: $!\n"; # like sun's; i prefer die
        $status++;
        next;
    }
    select((select($fh), $| = 1)[0]) if $unbuffer;
    $fh{$fh++} = $_;
}

while (<STDIN>) {
    for $fh (keys %fh) {
        print $fh $_;
    }
}

for $fh (keys %fh) {
    next if close($fh) || !defined $fh{$fh};
    warn "$0: couldnt close $fh{$fh}: $!\n";
    $status++;
}

exit $status;

sub PLUMBER {
    warn "$0: pipe to \"$fh{$fh}\" broke!\n";
    $status++;
    delete $fh{$fh};
}