Pipe output and capture exit status in Bash

Question

I want to execute a long running command in Bash, and both capture its exit status, and tee its output.

So I do this:

command | tee out.txt
ST=$?
         


        

Answer 1

By combining PIPESTATUS[0] and the result of executing the exit command in a subshell, you can directly access the return value of your initial command:

command | tee ; ( exit ${PIPESTATUS[0]} )

Here's an example:

# the "false" shell built-in command returns 1
false | tee ; ( exit ${PIPESTATUS[0]} )
echo "return value: $?"

will give you:

return value: 1