Getting error code of the first command in pipe in ash

Question

I use wget to download a big file to two FIFOs like that:

wget <wget-args> -O - | tee -a "$fifo1" >> "$fifo2"

I want to retrieve the error code of wget on failure.

set -o pipefail returns error code of the rightmost command in a pipe so I can't be sure that the error code comes from wget.

So how can I do it in ash?

Arushix · Accepted Answer · 2018-07-13T06:45:51.897

3

Just redirect return code of wget to a file , here $? contains the return code

$ (wget <wget-args> -O - ; echo $? > result) | tee -a "$fifo1" >> "$fifo2"

Here the file result will contain the status code of your operation

$ cat result
  0

edited Jul 13 '18 at 06:45

answered Jul 12 '18 at 12:43

Arushix

Why is the stdout from wget passed further to tee and call to echo is kind'a transparent? – K. Koovalsky Jul 12 '18 at 12:57
I just replicated what you did, and tried giving you the return code of the first command – Arushix Jul 12 '18 at 13:03
This won't work. The pipe is not getting any input, the ; ends the first command. – terdon Jul 12 '18 at 13:43
That first part of the pipeline must run in a subshell so that the output of wget is piped to tee. ( wget ...; echo ... >result ) | tee ... – Kusalananda Jul 12 '18 at 13:43
@Kusalananda please, post an answer and I'll accept it. – K. Koovalsky Jul 13 '18 at 06:42

1 Answers1