[SOLVED] How can i make the terminal continually print its output to a file? (lemmy.world)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by IndigoGollum@lemmy.world to c/linuxmint@lemmy.ml

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A game i play, Terraria, tends to work fine for a while then freeze for anywhere from a few seconds to until i force my computer to restart. I'd like to know why it does this and how i can fix it. I figure a good start is running the game from the terminal and recording that terminal's output.

Just saving the output to a file manually isn't an option because when the problems start my computer is frozen. What i need is some way to make it write the output to a file as the program runs, and save that regularly so i still have most of it even if my computer crashes.

Is there something i can append to any command to do this, or maybe some other command that enables logging? I'm using MATE 22.2, if that helps.

Adding >>log.txt 2>>error.txt to the end of the command works. File names are arbitrary, but the error log is specified by 2>> instead of just >>. Thanks everyone.

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[-] cypherpunks@lemmy.ml 10 points 10 months ago

programname >>my_output.txt 2>>my_errors.txt

This will run programname (replace that with name of the program you actually want to run) and append its standard output and standard error to the files my_output.txt and my_errors.txt (those filenames are arbitrary, you can call them whatever you want).

If you use > instead of >> it will overwrite the specified files each time you run it again, instead of appending to them if they already exist as >> does. In either case the files will be created if they do not exist.

You can read more about redirecting I/O in UNIX shells here.

[-] IndigoGollum@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

That works, thanks. I thought at first it didn't but apparently there's not normally as much stuff printed to the terminal as i expected.

[-] kutsyk_alexander@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

$ ./terraria > output.log 2>&1

Explanation

[-] dxc@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Thanks for the link, what a good explanation. Although reading through stderr gave me the impression its written by an LLM because of the use of 2>>

Appending stderr output using 2>> (append mode): ls non_existent_file 2>> error_log.txt

gfg0622 @Anshu-ka-lappi:-$ cat error_log.txt ls: cannot access 'non existent file': No such file or directory ls: cannot access 'non 'non_exist existent file 2': No such file or directory

[-] dxc@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago

You're looking for a log file, most probably hidden in the home folder. Quick online search only led me to server and modloader log files. I did find a relevant thread on reddit though, maybe its a step in the right direction.

[-] IndigoGollum@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

It had not occurred to me to see if the game was already logging stuff.

[-] dxc@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago

On the other hand, it did not occur to me that it is not logging lmao

this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2025

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