Re: exec | wc isn't very useful...

[Peter Stephenson <pws@xxxxxxx>]

Anthony Heading wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Can anyone tell me why this doesn't do what I'd hope:
> 
>     exec | wc

The syntax doesn't make sense.  You're piping the output of "exec" on
its own, which doesn't do anything, to "wc".  A pipeline is
fundamentally different from a redirection.

> I'm wondering how to redirect the shell's "default" stdout into
> a process, e.g. do the equivalent of perl's
> 
>     open(STDOUT, "| wc");
>     print "two words";

Try this:

exec > >(wc)

Something like this got broken at one point (by me) but is working in
the latest version of the shell.

-- 
Peter Stephenson <pws@xxxxxxx>                  Software Engineer
CSR PLC, Churchill House, Cambridge Business Park, Cowley Road
Cambridge, CB4 0WZ, UK                          Tel: +44 (0)1223 692070


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