mjhjmtu

I'm trying to redirect stderr to stdout and then out to a file in an init script, but when I introduce stderr to stdout I get the “Ambiguous output redirect” error. Stdout alone does not result in the error, and writes to the log file where I stated. I've tried the following

-jar /jbeaulau_test/microservices/config-server-0.0.2-RELEASE.jar &>/jbeaulau_test/microservices/log/all.log &

-jar /jbeaulau_test/microservices/config-server-0.0.2-RELEASE.jar >/jbeaulau_test/microservices/log/all.log 2>&1 &

Any advice would be appreciated.

If you're running (t)csh, you get Ambiguous output redirect. if you try to set up two conflicting redirections:

> echo foo > a > b
Ambiguous output redirect.

In Bash, you could get a similar error if use an array with multiple elements in place of the filename:

$ set aa bb
$ echo foo > "$@"
bash: "$@": ambiguous redirect

As mentioned in answers to stderr redirection not working in csh, the >& operator works in (t)csh to redirect both stdout and stderr. 2>&1 is the standard way to redirect stderr to the same place as stdout, but (t)csh doesn't support that. Instead, it takes the combination > foo 2>&1 as a redirection to foo, a regular argument 2, and a redirection to 1, and the redirections conflict, so you get the error.

>& also works in Bash and zsh, but isn't a standard feature.

The second entry should work fine. The "ambiguous redirect" error sometimes happens if you either have spaces where they shouldn't be, or conversely when an important space is missing.

I would simplify your command to demonstrate:

echo "Test" >/tmp/x.txt 2>&1 &

The ">/tmp/x.txt" part will redirect stdout (file handle #1). A space between the > and the file name is permitted (although in this context would be confusing), but otherwise there should not be any spaces in here.

The 2>&1 will redirect stderr (file handle 2) to whatever file handle 1 goes to (which is stdout). There must not be any spaces in here, either.

The & will background your task. This must be offset with a space from the preceding character.

Reversing the two redirections does not work (although echo is a poor choice here since it does not produce stderr output):

echo "This will not work" 2>&1 >/tmp/x.txt &

This means:

2>&1

Redirect file handle 2 to where file handle 1 goes (which at this point is still the console)

>/tmp/x.txt

Redirect file handle 1 to a file - but since file handle 2 (stderr) is already redirected at this point, it will keep its destination and still go to the console.

The first command you wrote is simply a syntax error.

echo &>/tmp/x.txt

Update: @Wildcard pointed out in the comments that this is actually valid syntax.