bash: redirect (and append) stdout and stderr to file and terminal and get proper exit status

Question

To redirect (and append) stdout and stderr to a file, while also displaying it on the terminal, I do this:

command 2>&1 | tee -a file.txt

Answer 1

Perhaps you could put the exit value from PIPESTATUS into $?

command 2>&1 | tee -a file.txt ; ( exit ${PIPESTATUS} )