Writing command output to file

Question

I have a problem trying to write the output of a shell command to a file.

This works

cssbeautify basket.css > file.css

This doesn't. basket.css has now no content

cssbeautify basket.css > basket.css

Is that a normal behavior? How to get around it?

Edit: Here is the command I'm using to beautify all the files in the folder. You might find it useful.

for f in *;
do cssbeautify $f > temp_file && mv temp_file $f;
done

fedorqui · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-11 09:45:07Z

4

You cannot use a file as "pattern" and redirect to it.

Use for example:

cssbeautify basket.css > temp_file && mv temp_file basket.css

It will create a temp_file and -in case the first command runs successfully- then will overwrite it to basket.css.

answered Nov 11, 2013 at 9:45

fedorqui

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fedorqui · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-11 09:51:01Z

2

cssbeautify reads from basket.css, beautifies it and writes to STDOUT.

By using > basked.css you instruct the shell to write the output to basked.css. Before that the file content is cleared. cssbeautify thus reads an empty file and outputs an empty file.

So yes this is the normal behavior. You could write to a temporary file and mv it afterwards.

edited Nov 11, 2013 at 9:51

fedorqui

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answered Nov 11, 2013 at 9:48

Markus Kreusch

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