annotate-output(1)

1ANNOTATE-OUTPUT(1)          General Commands Manual         ANNOTATE-OUTPUT(1)
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NAME

6       annotate-output - annotate program output with time and stream
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SYNOPSIS

9       annotate-output [options] program [args ...]
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DESCRIPTION

12       annotate-output  will  execute  the specified program, while prepending
13       every line with the current time and O for stdout and E for stderr.
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OPTIONS

17       +FORMAT
18              Controls the timestamp format,  as  per  date(1).   Defaults  to
19              "%H:%M:%S".
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21       -h, --help
22              Display a help message and exit successfully.
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EXAMPLE

26       $ annotate-output make
27       21:41:21 I: Started make
28       21:41:21 O: gcc -Wall program.c
29       21:43:18 E: program.c: Couldn't compile, and took me ages to find out
30       21:43:19 E: collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
31       21:43:19 E: make: *** [all] Error 1
32       21:43:19 I: Finished with exitcode 2
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BUGS

36       Since  stdout  and stderr are processed in parallel, it can happen that
37       some lines received on stdout will show up before later-printed  stderr
38       lines (and vice-versa).
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40       This  is  unfortunately  very  hard  to fix with the current annotation
41       strategy.  A fix would involve switching  to  PTRACE'ing  the  process.
42       Giving  nice  a  (much) higher priority over the executed program could
43       however cause this behaviour to show up less frequently.
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45       The program does not work as well when the output is not linewise.   In
46       particular,  when  an  interactive program asks for input, the question
47       might not be shown until after you have answered it.   This  will  give
48       the impression that the annotated program has hung, while it has not.
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SUPPORT

56       This  program  is  community-supported  (meaning: you'll need to fix it
57       yourself).  Patches are however appreciated, as is any feedback  (posi‐
58       tive or negative).
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AUTHOR

62       annotate-output  was  written  by Jeroen van Wolffelaar <jeroen@wolffe‐
63       laar.nl>. This manpage comes under the same copyright as  annotate-out‐
64       put  itself, read /usr/bin/annotate-output (or wherever you install it)
65       for the details.
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69DEBIAN                         Debian Utilities             ANNOTATE-OUTPUT(1)