CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashcroncygwin
Kev
Kev

Reputation: 16321

cron send STDOUT or logfile by mail only when STDERR is not blank

I've seen many questions about only emailing STDERR, but that's not quite what I want. When STDERR is not blank, I would like both STDOUT and STDERR to be sent to me, or, alternatively, the contents of a log file, which would accomplish the same thing. How can I accomplish this?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 82

Answers (1)

John1024
John1024

Reputation: 113834

In summary, you want to send a logfile by email if the STDERR output is not blank. In that case:

some_command 2>"$HOME/.errs.tmp.$$"
[ -s "$HOME/.errs.tmp.$$" ] && mail user@host -s "Error Info" <logfile

-s tests whether the file is nonempty. So, the email is sent only if there were errors.

To clean up the temporary files, use this:

errs="$HOME/.errs.tmp.$$"
my_exit() { rm -f "$errs"; }
trap my_exit  EXIT
some_command  2>"$errs"
[ -s "$errs" ] && mail user@host -s "Error Info" <logfile

Note that the temporary file was put in the user's home directory. Although probably not important here, this avoids the security issues associated with created temporary files in /tmp and hence the need for mktemp or other utility.

Upvotes: 1

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