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Not trying to start a dispute here, but I need clarity:

I ran into this question: How to record bash terminal output without suppressing the terminal output?, in which OP asks how to save terminal output into a file. I therefore marked it as a dupe of: How do I save terminal output to a file?.

Also the accepted answer totally confirms the fact that these questions are pretty much exact dupes, and OP was looking for exactly the same answer(s).

OP however claims that his question: "is more specific to his requirments than that question in that link" because:

the anwsers in that post will fullfill my requirments but is anywhere there mentioned that the hacks will work for bash scripts or any other scripts as well?

I admit that I have no clue what that should mean.

The community seems to understand what he means however, and to agree with him. Literally hundreds of people have passed by, but no one added a close vote. So I have been wondering what is exactly the difference between:

How to record bash terminal output?

and

How do I save the output of a command to a file?

If someone can give me a good one, I will remove my close vote instantly. If not, please vote to close.

For the record

As one would expect with a quite generic question like this, there are more excellent dupe candidates, like:

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    maybe we should edit the first one to be "how do I save output from a command to a file as well as show in the terminal?" then I guess it would be a slightly different question (even though answer #2 on the dupe target is about the tee command)?
    – Zanna Mod
    Sep 7, 2016 at 12:40
  • @Zanna Thanks! In principle, I would agree actually, but from another discussion, It was implicitely mentioned that answers are part of the "total" question. Since OP mentions the answers on the dupe (fully) work for him and the question actually is the same as it is, I see no other conclusion than the two are totally dupes. Again, not trying to start a dispute, but the definition of a dupe is swimming around. I think we all need clarity to prevent unnecessary discussions on each and every question. Sep 7, 2016 at 12:46
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    I'll be interested in what others think here too, thanks for asking :)
    – Zanna Mod
    Sep 7, 2016 at 12:57
  • I VTC that, the OP mentions the other question not meeting there needs but fails to supply any of those needs, if they can't defend why it is not a dupe, IMO it is.
    – Mark Kirby
    Sep 7, 2016 at 14:23
  • I think there is a difference of scope. OPs problem here is narrow in scope. The question there has broader scope. The answer there was valid for anything that redirects output to a file. But, answer here requires the output to be shown on your terminal also.
    – Anwar
    Sep 7, 2016 at 16:16
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    Even if it is a dupe, it should have a more specific title to be a better signpost...
    – Zanna Mod
    Sep 7, 2016 at 16:52

3 Answers 3

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I'll try to give my reasons for not voting the question as duplicate here.

The difference I see between these two questions is -

  • The newer question is an specific case of the older question.

To clarify on this topic,

  • An answer with either tee or > operator approach was valid for the older question. however for the new question an answer with > is not valid. In fact, if you check the timeline of that question, you'd see that the question was answered first with > approach and wasn't accepted. Instead it was edited to clear the requirement. However, for the older question, the answer with > was accepted way before tee based answer appeared. Check here

Now, A more philosophical question will arise from this,

If a broader scoped question has answers to satisfy a question with narrower scope, Should we close the narrower scoped question as a duplicate?

From my understanding of StackExchange model, I'd say no. That's why we aren't shown the answers in the close votes review queue. We're only shown the questions. For example, If a find a substring question has answers with different programming languages, that's fine. But that would not make a question specifically asking a python solution a duplicate of the prior question.

Because, if you remove all answers from the older question leaving only the accepted Java solution, that would not satisfy the requirement of the newer question and you can't dupe to it.

Hope I made the difference a little clearer here.

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    Hi Anwar, Thanks! First of all, my question was not meant as an accusing: "why didn't you vote to close". The fact that you mention: That's why we aren't shown the answers in the close votes review queue. We're only shown the questions. is interesting. Actually I agree with you, but it really clashes with results of recent other discussions. I will put some effort in formulate a generalized question + suggestions to get clear how we should decide if a dupe is a dupe or not. My sincere impression is that there are as many concepts on the subjects as there are active members on AU. Thanks! Sep 7, 2016 at 17:56
  • @user72216 Thanks to you too. I didn't take it as an accusation. I tried to give reasoning I had (and always have) in these cases. I tried hard to make the points clearer, don't know How far I succeed.
    – Anwar
    Sep 7, 2016 at 17:59
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    I think completely. Sep 7, 2016 at 18:00
  • We are shown the answers in the dupe queue. Just not the answers to the question being reviewed, we're shown the answers of the suggested duplicate which we will need to read in order to judge whether the question has been answered by the dupe.
    – terdon
    Sep 9, 2016 at 14:20
  • @terdon I just seen it. I might have confused with other close reasons. However, I think other logic still apply
    – Anwar
    Sep 9, 2016 at 14:46
  • I don't see why. If I ask "How can I do foo with python", it would seem very reasonable to close it as a dupe of "How can I do foo" as long as the second also had an answer using python. The role of dupes is to i) avoid duplicating information and ii) help lead people to where the answer is.
    – terdon
    Sep 9, 2016 at 14:51
2

I agree that it's a duplicate and see that it's now tagged as such since the only output I expect to see on a bash terminal is output of a command.

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Yours truly posted a "potential" duplicate question on Intel Microcode today. But there was "wiggle room" because it also referenced "Unknown:Unknown" which Ubuntu displays on the Additional Drivers screen.

With 2 close votes on file someone posted an answer that is better than all the answers on the dups (IMO). Although I hate to see my question closed I'd love to see the great answer migrated to the accepted original "unique" question. Is it possible to merge answers from duplicate questions into the original?

I like @Zanna comment above for "a better signpost" and I offered that olive branch to @Kerel today to change the question's title.

PS I just checked and there are now 3 votes to close.

PPS I think I figured out "Unknown:Unknown" means "Manufacturer:Model Name/Number"

What are pitfalls of Intel proprietary microcode in Additional Drivers tab?

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  • If you want to get the posts merged as yours is now closed, simply tell a mod in chat that you think the answer is worth a merge, you could flag it too but that seems a bit more complicated than popping to chat.
    – Mark Kirby
    Sep 14, 2016 at 13:11
  • @MarkKirby stupid quesiton... how do you chat with a mod? Sep 15, 2016 at 2:16
  • Click stack exchange in the top left of the page and in that mnenu is a little chat button.
    – Mark Kirby
    Sep 15, 2016 at 6:43

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