nohup improve: output to another file

[Pablo G. Figuerola]

hi! I needed to use nohup but I don't want it to write output in nohup.out

I wrote 2 months ago a little hack to modify this. With it I do
"nohup -o my_output_file foo --options-to-foo" and I hope it tries to
write to my_output_file (but not to $HOME/my_output_file, unlike the
normal behavior with nohup.out). And I think it works well, at least
what I've tried.

I wrote it against coreutils-5.97. Maybe it is interesting for more
people, althought I don't know if it's well written, neither if it's any
other problem.

diff -u says this:

--- old/coreutils-5.97/src/nohup.c    2005-08-12 10:25:52.000000000 +0200
+++ new/coreutils-5.97/src/nohup.c     2006-07-31 00:22:45.000000000 +0200
@@ -44,6 +44,11 @@
     NOHUP_FAILURE = 127
   };

+/* Program options */
+struct option options[]={
+  {"output", required_argument, NULL, 'o'},
+  {NULL,0,NULL,0}};
+
 char *program_name;

 void
@@ -55,7 +60,7 @@
   else
     {
       printf (_("\
-Usage: %s COMMAND [ARG]...\n\
+Usage: %s [-o <file>] COMMAND [ARG]...\n\
   or:  %s OPTION\n\
 "),
              program_name, program_name);
@@ -64,6 +69,7 @@
 Run COMMAND, ignoring hangup signals.\n\
 \n\
 "), stdout);
+      fputs(_("      -o, --output <file>\t Redirects output to <file>
and not to 'nohup.out'\n"), stdout);
       fputs (HELP_OPTION_DESCRIPTION, stdout);
       fputs (VERSION_OPTION_DESCRIPTION, stdout);
       printf (USAGE_BUILTIN_WARNING, PROGRAM_NAME);
@@ -76,6 +82,7 @@
 main (int argc, char **argv)
 {
   int saved_stderr_fd = STDERR_FILENO;
+  char *output_file=NULL;

   initialize_main (&argc, &argv);
   program_name = argv[0];
@@ -86,10 +93,20 @@
   initialize_exit_failure (NOHUP_FAILURE);
   atexit (close_stdout);

+  if(argc==1)
+    usage(NOHUP_FAILURE);
+
   parse_long_options (argc, argv, PROGRAM_NAME, GNU_PACKAGE, VERSION,
                      usage, AUTHORS, (char const *) NULL);
-  if (getopt_long (argc, argv, "+", NULL, NULL) != -1)
-    usage (NOHUP_FAILURE);
+
+  if(argv[1][0]=='-')
+    if('o'==getopt_long(argc, argv, "o:", options, NULL))
+      output_file=optarg;
+    else
+      usage(NOHUP_FAILURE);
+  else
+    if (getopt_long (argc, argv, "+", NULL, NULL) != -1)
+      usage (NOHUP_FAILURE);

   if (argc <= optind)
     {
@@ -108,21 +125,26 @@
   if (isatty (STDOUT_FILENO))
     {
       char *in_home = NULL;
-      char const *file = "nohup.out";
+      char *file = "nohup.out";
       int flags = O_CREAT | O_WRONLY | O_APPEND;
       mode_t mode = S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR;
       mode_t umask_value = umask (~mode);
       int fd = fd_reopen (STDOUT_FILENO, file, flags, mode);

+      if(output_file)
+       file=output_file;
+
       if (fd < 0)
        {
          int saved_errno = errno;
-         char const *home = getenv ("HOME");
-         if (home)
-           {
-             in_home = file_name_concat (home, file, NULL);
-             fd = fd_reopen (STDOUT_FILENO, in_home, flags, mode);
-           }
+         if(!output_file) {
+           char const *home = getenv ("HOME");
+           if (home)
+             {
+               in_home = file_name_concat (home, file, NULL);
+               fd = fd_reopen (STDOUT_FILENO, in_home, flags, mode);
+             }
+         }
          if (fd < 0)
            {
              int saved_errno2 = errno;
@@ -132,7 +154,8 @@
                       quote (in_home));
              exit (NOHUP_FAILURE);
            }
-         file = in_home;
+         if(!output_file)
+           file = in_home;
        }

       umask (umask_value);


No more.
Ciao

--
Pablo G. Figuerola