Bash: Find out the exit codes of all piped commands

Posted on in Categories , , last updated March 8, 2016

How do I get exit status of process that’s piped to another (for e.g. ‘netstat -tulpn | grep nginx‘) on a Linux or Unix-like system using a bash shell?

A shell pipe is a way to connect the output of one program to the input of another program without any temporary file. The syntax is:

command1 | command2 | commandN

OR

command1 | filter_data_command > output

OR

get_data_command | verify_data_command | process_data_command | format_data_command > output.data.file

How to use pipes to connect programs

Use the vertical bar (|) between two commands. In this example, send netstat command output to grep command i.e. find out if nginx process exits or not in the system:
# netstat -tulpn | grep nginx
Sample outputs:

Fig.01: Find the exit status of pipe command
Fig.01: Find the exit status of pipe command

How to get exit status of process that’s piped to another

The syntax is:

command1 | command2 
echo "${PIPESTATUS[@]}"

OR

command1 | command2 
echo "${PIPESTATUS[0]} ${PIPESTATUS[1]}"

PIPESTATUS is an array variable containing a list of exit status values from the processes in the most-recently-executed foreground pipeline. Try the following commands:

netstat -tulpn | grep nginx
echo "${PIPESTATUS[@]}"
 
true | true
echo "The exit status of first command ${PIPESTATUS[0]}, and the second command ${PIPESTATUS[1]}"
 
true | false
echo "The exit status of first command ${PIPESTATUS[0]}, and the second command ${PIPESTATUS[1]}"
 
false | false | true 
echo "The exit status of first command ${PIPESTATUS[0]}, second command ${PIPESTATUS[1]}, and third command ${PIPESTATUS[2]}"

Sample outputs:

Fig.02: Use the PIPESTATUS array variable to get the exit status of each element of the pipeline
Fig.02: Use the PIPESTATUS array to get the exit status of each element of the pipeline (click to enlarge)

Putting it all together

Here is a sample script that use ${PIPESTATUS[0]} to find out the exit status of mysqldump command in order to notify user on screen about database backup status:

#!/bin/bash
### Purpose: mysql.backup.sh : Backup database ###
### Author: Vivek Gite <www.cyberciti.biz>, under GPL v2.x+ or above. ###
### Change as per your needs ###
MUSER='USERNAME-here'
MPASS='PASSWORD-here'
MHOST='10.0.3.100'  
DEST="/nfs42/backups/mysql"
NOWFORMAT="%m_%d_%Y_%H_%M_%S%P"
MYSQL="/usr/bin/mysql"
MYSQLDUMP="/usr/bin/mysqldump"
MKDIR="/bin/mkdir"
RM="/bin/rm"
GZIP="/bin/gzip"
DATE="/bin/date"
SED="/bin/sed"
 
# Failsafe? Create dir #
[  ! -d "$DEST" ] && $MKDIR -p "$DEST"
 
# Filter db names
DBS="$($MYSQL -u $MUSER -h $MHOST -p$MPASS -Bse 'show databases')"
DBS="$($SED -e 's/performance_schema//' -e 's/information_schema//' <<<$DBS)"
 
# Okay, let us go
for db in $DBS
do
                tTime=$(date +"${NOWFORMAT}")
                FILE="$DEST/${db}.${tTime}.gz"
                $MYSQLDUMP -u $MUSER -h $MHOST -p$MPASS $db | $GZIP -9 > $FILE
				if [ ${PIPESTATUS[0]} -ne "0" ];
				then
				    echo "The command $MYSQLDUMP failed with error code ${PIPESTATUS[0]}."
				    exit 1
				else
				    echo "Database $db dump successfully."
				fi
done

A note about zsh user

Use the array called pipestatus as follows:

true | true
echo "${pipestatus[1]} ${pipestatus[2]}"

Outputs:

0 0

Posted by: Vivek Gite

The author is the creator of nixCraft and a seasoned sysadmin and a trainer for the Linux operating system/Unix shell scripting. He has worked with global clients and in various industries, including IT, education, defense and space research, and the nonprofit sector. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Google+.

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4 comment

  3. I am a Fedora user and I installed zsh and enabled it, but at the first reboot, I got a menu of configurations options of zsh and I don’t know how to configure code completion and other configuration options. Do you can help me?

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