Displaying Windows command prompt output and redirecting it to a file

Question

How can I run a command-line application in the Windows command prompt and have the output both displayed and redirected to a file at the same time   If  for example  I were to run the command dir  gt  test txt  this would redirect output to a file called test txt without displaying the results   How could I write a command to display the output and redirect output to a file in the Windows command prompt  similar to the tee command on Unix

User · Answer

mtee is a small utility which works very well for this purpose. It's free, source is open, and it Just Works.

You can find it at http://www.commandline.co.uk.

Used in a batch file to display output AND create a log file simultaneously, the syntax looks like this:

    someprocess | mtee /+ mylogfile.txt

Where /+ means to append output.

This assumes that you have copied mtee into a folder which is in the PATH, of course.

User · Answer

Something like this should do what you need    DATE   TIME   gt  c  a txt  amp  type c  a txt ipconfig  gt  gt  c  a txt  amp  type c  a txt ping localhost  gt  gt  c  a txt  amp  type c  a txt pause

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Unfortunately there is no such thing    Windows console applications only have a single output handle   Well  there are two STDOUT  STDERR but it doesn t matter here  The  gt  redirects the output normally written to the console handle to a file handle   If you want to have some kind of multiplexing you have to use an external application which you can divert the output to  This application then can write to a file and to the console again

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If you re on the CLI  why not use a FOR loop to  DO  whatever you want   for  F  delims    a in   dir   do  echo  a  amp  amp  echo  a  gt  gt  output txt   Great resource on Windows CMD for loops  https   ss64 com nt for cmd html The key here is setting the delimeters  delims   that would break up each line of output  to nothing  This way it won t break on the default of white-space  The  a is an arbitrary letter  but it is used in the  do  section to  well    do something with the characters that were parsed at each line  In this case we can use the ampersands   amp  amp   to execute the 2nd echo command to create-or-append      to a file of our choosing  Safer to keep this order of DO commands in case there s an issue writing the file  we ll at least get the echo to the console first  The at sign     in front of the first echo suppresses the console from showing the echo-command itself  and instead just displays the result of the command which is to display the characters in  a  Otherwise you d see      echo Volume in drive  x  is Windows Volume in drive  x  is Windows   UPDATE   F skips blank lines and only fix is to pre-filter the output adding a character to every line  maybe with line-numbers via the command find   Solving this in CLI isn t quick or pretty  Also  I didn t include STDERR  so here s capturing errors as well   for  F  delims    a in   dir 2  gt   amp 1   do  echo  a  amp  echo  a  gt  gt  output txt   Redirecting Error Messages  The carets     are there to escape the symbols after them  because the command is a string that s being interpreted  as opposed to say  entering it directly on the command-line

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send output to console  append to console log  delete output from current command  dir   gt  gt  usb-create 1  amp  amp  type usb-create 1  gt  gt  usb-create log   type usb-create 1  amp  amp  del usb-create 1

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I know this is a very old topic  but in previous answers there is not a full implementation of a real time Tee written in Batch  My solution below is a Batch-JScript hybrid script that use the JScript section just to get the output from the piped command  but the processing of the data is done in the Batch section  This approach have the advantage that any Batch programmer may modify this program to fit specific needs  This program also correctly process the output of CLS command produced by other Batch files  that is  it clear the screen when CLS command output is detected    if   CodeSection     Batch   then    echo off setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion  rem APATee bat  Asynchronous  real time  Tee program  Batch-JScript hybrid version rem Antonio Perez Ayala  rem The advantage of this program is that the data management is written in Batch code  rem so any Batch programmer may modify it to fit their own needs  rem As an example of this feature  CLS command is correctly managed  if    1  equ         echo Duplicate the Stdout output of a command in the screen and a disk file    echo     echo anyCommand    APATee teeFile txt   A     echo     echo If  A switch is given  anyCommand output is  appended  to teeFile txt    goto  EOF    if   2  equ   TeeProcess  goto TeeProcess  rem Get the output of CLS command for  F   a in   cls   do set  cls   a   rem If  A switch is not provided  delete the file that receives Tee output if  I    2  neq   A  if exist  1 del  1  rem Create the semaphore-signal file and start the asynchronous Tee process echo X  gt  Flag out if exist Flag in del Flag in Cscript   nologo   E JScript    F0       F0   1  TeeProcess del Flag out goto  EOF   TeeProcess    rem Wait for  Data Available  signal    if not exist Flag in goto TeeProcess    rem Read the line sent by JScript section    set line     set  P line     rem Set  Data Read  acknowledgement    ren Flag in Flag out    rem Check for the standard  End Of piped File  mark    if   line   equ    EOF    exit  B    rem Correctly manage CLS command    if   line  0 1   equ   cls           cls       set  line  line  1           rem Duplicate the line in Stdout and the Tee output file    echo  line     echo  line  gt  gt   1 goto TeeProcess    end      JScript section  var fso   new ActiveXObject  Scripting FileSystemObject       Process all lines of Stdin while     WScript Stdin AtEndOfStream           Read the next line from Stdin    var line   WScript Stdin ReadLine          Wait for  Data Read  acknowledgement    while     fso FileExists  Flag out             WScript Sleep 10              Send the line to Batch section    WScript Stdout WriteLine line         Set  Data Available  signal    fso MoveFile  Flag out    Flag in         Wait for last  Data Read  acknowledgement while     fso FileExists  Flag out             WScript Sleep 10        Send the standard  End Of piped File  mark WScript Stdout WriteLine    EOF      fso MoveFile  Flag out    Flag in

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https   cygwin com install Click the link for  setup-x86  exe  Run the installer On  2nd page  choose a  mirror  to download from  I looked for a  edu domain  I said ok to the standard options Cygwin quickly finished install Open cmd Type c  cygwin64 bin script exe and enter Type cmd and enter Run your program Type exit and enter  exits Cygwin s cmd exe  Type exit and enter  exits Cygwin s script exe  See the screen output of your program in text file called  typescript

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Here s a sample of what I ve used based on one of the other answers   echo off REM SOME CODE set   ERROR LOG c  errors txt REM set   IPADDRESS x x x x  REM Test a variable if not defined   IPADDRESS        REM Call function with some data and terminate      call  TEE  DATE   TIME  IP ADDRESS IS NOT DEFINED      goto  EOF    REM If test happens to be successful  TEE out a message and end script  call  TEE Script Ended Successful goto  EOF   REM THE TEE FUNCTION  TEE for  f  tokens      Z in        do         gt   CON ECHO   Z       gt  gt      ERROR LOG   ECHO   Z      goto  EOF

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I use a batch subroutine with a  for  statement to get the command output one line at a time and both write that line to a file and output it to the console    echo off set logfile test log  call  ExecuteAndTee dir C  Program Files  Exit  B 0   ExecuteAndTee setlocal enabledelayedexpansion echo Executing        for  f  delims     a in      2  gt   amp 1   do  echo   a  amp  echo   a gt  gt  logfile   endlocal Exit  B 0

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This works in real time but is also kind a ugly and the performance is slow    Not well tested either    echo off cls SET MYCOMMAND dir  B ECHO File called  test bat   gt  out txt for  f  usebackq delims     I in    MYCOMMAND    do     ECHO   I   ECHO   I  gt  gt  out txt    pause

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This is not another answer  but more an overview and clarification to the already existed answers like Displaying Windows command prompt output and redirecting it to a file and others I ve found for myself that there is a set of issues what makes a set of tee implementations are not reliable in the Windows  Windows 7 in mine case   I need to use specifically a tee implementation because have already uses a batch script with self redirection   echo off  setlocal       some conditions here     rem the redirection  quot  COMSPEC  quot   C call  0    2 gt  amp 1    quot  lt path to tee utililty gt  quot   quot  log  lt log file name with date and time gt    nx0 log quot  exit  b   IMPL     here the rest of script      The script and calls to some utilities inside the script can break the output if used together with a tee utility    The gnuwin32 implementation   http   gnuwin32 sourceforge net packages coreutils htm Pros   Correctly handles standard output together with a console progress bar  where the  r character is heavily used   Cons   Makes console progress bars to draw only in a log file  but it has not duplicated or visible in the console window  Throws multiple error messages Cwrite error  No such file or directory because seems the cmd interpreter closes the pipe stdout too early and can not self close after that  spamming until termination   Does not duplicate print the output from the pause command  Press any key to continue     in the console window     The wintee implementation   https   code google com archive p wintee  https   github com rbuhl wintee Pros   Shows a console progress bar both in the console window and in a log file  multiple prints   Does duplicate print the output from the pause command  Press any key to continnue     in the console window   Cons   Incorrectly handles the  r character  output is mixed and messed  https   code google com archive p wintee issues 7    Having other issues  https   code google com archive p wintee issues    The UnxUtils implementation   http   unxutils sourceforge net  https   sourceforge net projects unxutils files unxutils current  Pros  Shows a console progress bar both in the console window and in a log file  multiple prints   Correctly handles the  r character  Does duplicate print the output from the pause command  Press any key to continnue     in the console window   Cons Not yet found   The ss64 net implementation   http   ss64 net westlake nt http   ss64 net westlake nt tee zip Pros   Shows a console progress bar both in the console window and in a log file  multiple prints    Cons   Incorrectly handles the  r character  output is mixed and messed For some reason does duplicate print the output from the pause command  Press any key to continnue     in the console window AFTER a key press     The ritchielawrence mtee implementation   https   ritchielawrence github io mtee https   github com ritchielawrence mtee Pros  Shows a console progress bar both in the console window and in a log file  multiple prints   Correctly handles the  r character  Does duplicate print the output from the pause command  Press any key to continnue     in the console window  The error code retain feature w o a need to use workaround with the doskey   E flag  Windows command interpreter  how to obtain exit code of first piped command    Cons  Does not support forward slash characters in the path to a log file  https   github com ritchielawrence mtee issues 6     So  if you are choosing the tee utility implementation between the above  then a better choice is the UnxUtils or mtee

User · Answer

I install perl on most of my machines so an answer using perl   tee pl  my  file   shift     tee dat   open  output    gt     file or die  unable to open  file as output       while  lt STDIN gt         print         print  output       close  output    dir   perl tee pl or  dir   perl tee pl dir bat  crude and untested

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An alternative is to tee stdout to stderr within your program   in java   System setOut new PrintStream new TeeOutputStream System out  System err       Then  in your dos batchfile  java program  gt  log txt  The stdout will go to the logfile and the stderr  same data  will show on the console

User · Answer

To expand on davor s answer  you can use PowerShell like this   powershell  dir   tee test txt    If you re trying to redirect the output of an exe in the current directory  you need to use    on the filename  eg   powershell    something exe   tee test txt

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I was also looking for the same solution  after a little try  I was successfully able to achieve that in Command Prompt  Here is my solution     Echo off for  f  Delims     a IN  xyz bat  do     a  gt     amp  amp  type    amp  amp  type    gt  gt  log txt    Echo on   It even captures any PAUSE command as well

User · Answer

I agree with Brian Rasmussen  the unxutils port is the easiest way to do this  In the Batch Files section of his Scripting Pages Rob van der Woude provides a wealth of information on the use MS-DOS and CMD commands  I thought he might have a native solution to your problem and after digging around there I found TEE BAT  which appears to be just that  an MS-DOS batch language implementation of tee  It is a pretty complex-looking batch file and my inclination would still be to use the unxutils port

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If you have cygwin in your windows environment path you can use    dir  gt  a txt   tail -f a txt

User · Answer

This is a variation on a previous answer by MTS  however it adds some functionality that might be useful to others   Here is the method that I used    A command is set as a variable  that can be used later throughout the code  to output to the command window and append to a log file  using set  Temp Msg Cmd    the command has escaped redirection using the carrot   character so that the commands are not evaluated initially  A temporary file is created with a filename similar to the batch file being run called   n0 temp txt that uses command line parameter extension syntax   n0 to get the name of the batch file  The output is appended to a separate log file   n0 log txt   Here is the sequence of commands    The output and error messages are sent to the temporary file   gt    n0 temp txt 2  gt   amp 1 The content of the temporary file is then both     appended to the logfile   amp  type   n0 temp txt   gt   gt    n0 log txt output to the command window   amp  type   n0 temp txt  The temporary file with the message is deleted   amp  del  Q  F   n0 temp txt   Here is the example   set  Temp Msg Cmd    gt    n0 temp txt 2  gt   amp 1   amp  type   n0 temp txt   gt   gt    n0 log txt   amp  type   n0 temp txt   amp  del  Q  F   n0 temp txt  This way then the command can simply be appended after later commands in a batch file that looks a lot cleaner   echo test message   Temp Msg Cmd   This can be added to the end of other commands as well   As far as I can tell it will work when messages have multiple lines   For example the following command outputs two lines if there is an error message   net use M   D  Y   Temp Msg Cmd

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tori3852  I found that  dir  gt  a txt   type a txt   didn t work  first few lines of dir listing only - suspect some sort of process forking and the second part  the  type  command terminated before the dire listing had completed     so instead I used   dir  gt  z txt  amp  amp  type z txt   which did - sequential commands  one completes before the second starts

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Another variation is to split the pipe  and then re-direct the output as you like        echo off     for  f  tokens 1   delims      P in   findstr  n       do         echo   Q       echo   Q gt  amp 3            exit b  errorlevel    Save the above to a  bat file   It splits text output on filestream 1 to filestream 3 also  which you can redirect as needed   In my examples below  I called the above script splitPipe bat          dir   splitPipe bat  1 gt con  2 gt  amp 1  3 gt my stdout log      splitPipe bat 2 gt nul  lt  somefile txt

User · Answer

Just like unix   dir   tee a txt  Does work On windows XP  it requires mksnt installed   It displays on the prompt as well as appends to the file

User · Answer

Following helps if you want something really seen on the screen - even if the batch file was redirected to a file  The device CON maybe used also if redirected to a file  Example   ECHO first line on normal stdout  maybe redirected ECHO second line on normal stdout again  maybe redirected ECHO third line is to ask the user  not redirected   gt CON ECHO fourth line on normal stdout again  maybe redirected   Also see good redirection description   http   www p-dd com chapter7-page14 html

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dir 1 gt a txt 2 gt  amp 1   type a txt  This will help to redirect both STDOUT and STDERR

User · Answer

There s a Win32 port of the Unix tee command  that does exactly that  See http   unxutils sourceforge net  or http   getgnuwin32 sourceforge net

User · Answer

I   d like to expand a bit on Saxon Druce   s excellent answer   As stated  you can redirect the output of an executable in the current directory like so   powershell    something exe   tee test txt    However  this only logs stdout to test txt  It doesn   t also log stderr   The obvious solution would be to use something like this   powershell    something exe 2 gt  amp 1   tee test txt    However  this won   t work for all something exes  Some something exes will interpret the 2 gt  amp 1 as an argument and fail  The correct solution is to instead only have apostrophes around the something exe and its switches and arguments  like so   powershell    something exe --switch1 --switch2     arg1 arg2      2 gt  amp 1   tee test txt

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echo on  set startDate  date  set startTime  time   set  a sth  startTime  0 2  set  a stm 1 startTime  3 2  - 100 set  a sts 1 startTime  6 2  - 100   fullprocess bat  gt  C  LOGS  startDate   sth   stm   sts  LOG   fullprocess bat     This will create a log file with the current datetime and you can the console lines during the process

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I was able to find a solution workaround of redirecting output to a file and then to the console   dir  gt  a txt   type a txt   where dir is the command which output needs to be redirected  a txt a file where to store output

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Check this out  wintee  No need for cygwin   I did encounter and report some issues though   Also you might check unxutils because it contains tee  and no need for cygwin   but beware that output EOL s are UNIX-like here   Last  but not least  is if you have PowerShell  you could try Tee-Object  Type get-help tee-object in PowerShell console for more info

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This works  though it s a bit ugly   dir  gt    amp  amp  type    amp  amp  type    gt  a txt   It s a little more flexible than some of the other solutions  in that it works statement-by-statement so you can use it to append as well   I use this quite a bit in batch files to log and display messages   ECHO Print line to screen and log to file    gt    amp  amp  type    amp  amp  type    gt  gt  logfile txt   Yes  you could just repeat the ECHO statement  once for the screen and the second time redirecting to the logfile   but that looks just as bad and is a bit of a maintenance issue   At least this way you don t have to make changes to messages in two places   Note that   is just a short filename  so you ll need to make sure to delete it at the end of your batch file  if you re using a batch file

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A simple C  console application would do the trick   using System  using System Collections Generic  using System IO   namespace CopyToFiles       class Program               static void Main string   args                        var buffer   new char 100               var outputs   new List lt TextWriter gt                  foreach  var file in args                  outputs Add new StreamWriter file                 outputs Add Console Out                int bytesRead              do                               bytesRead   Console In ReadBlock buffer  0  buffer Length                   outputs ForEach o   gt  o Write buffer  0  bytesRead                  while  bytesRead    buffer Length                outputs ForEach o   gt  o Close                         To use this you just pipe the source command into the program and provide the path of any files you want to duplicate the output to   For example   dir   CopyToFiles files1 txt files2 txt    Will display the results of dir as well as store the results in both files1 txt and files2 txt   Note that there isn t much  anything   in the way of error handling above  and supporting multiple files may not actually be required

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I just found a way to use the perl as alternative  e g   CMD1   perl -ne  quot print     print STDERR     quot  2 gt  OUTPUT TEE

User · Answer

How do I display and redirect output   to a file  Suppose if I use dos   command  dir   test txt  this command   will redirect output to file test txt   without displaying the results  how to   write a command to display the output   and redirect output to a file using   DOS i e   windows command prompt  not   in UNIX LINUX    You may find these commands in biterscripting   http   www biterscripting com   useful   var str output lf  gt   output echo  output                              Will show output on screen  echo  output  gt   test txt                  Will write output to file test txt  system start  test txt                    Will open file test txt for viewing editing

[batch-file] Displaying Windows command prompt output and redirecting it to a file

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