Save Output To File In Middle Of Command Chain

The tee command creates a T-junction in a command pipeline, both saving the standard output of the previous command to a file and passing the standard output onward down the pipeline. It is often useful when we want to see the data at intermediate steps in a command pipeline without interrupting it.

Create Example File With List Of File Names

echo 'data_science.txt' >> files.txt
echo 'data_science.html' >> files.txt
echo 'data_science.csv' >> files.txt
echo 'sales.txt' >> files.txt
echo 'operations.html' >> files.txt
echo 'deep_learning.csv' >> files.txt

View File

cat files.txt

data_science.txt
data_science.html
data_science.csv
sales.txt
operations.html
deep_learning.csv

Create Pipeline With Tees

In this pipeline, we:

1. cat files.txt, view all filenames
2. tee all_files.txt, save all filenames to file
3. grep data_science, view only filenames with data_science in filename
4. tee data_science_files.txt, save all data science filenames to file
5. grep .csv, view only filenames with .csv in filename
6. tee data_science_csv_files.txt, save all data science csv filenames to file

cat files.txt | tee all_files.txt | grep data_science | tee data_science_files.txt | grep .csv | tee data_science_csv_files.txt

data_science.csv

View File With All Filenames

cat all_files.txt

data_science.txt
data_science.html
data_science.csv
sales.txt
operations.html
deep_learning.csv

View File With Data Science Filenames

cat data_science_files.txt

data_science.txt
data_science.html
data_science.csv

View File With Data Science CSV Filenames

cat data_science_csv_files.txt

data_science.csv