Bash Redirection and Piping Shortcuts

Redirecting both stdout and stderr

In order to redirect both standard output and standard error to a file, you would traditionally do this:

my_command > file 2>&1

A shorter way to write the same thing is by using &> (or >&) as shown below:

my_command &> file

Similarly, to append both standard output and standard error to a file, use &>>:

my_command &>> file

Piping both stdout and stderr

To pipe both standard output and standard error, you would traditionally do this:

my_command 2>&1 | another_command

A shorter way is to use |& as shown below:

my_command |& another_command

Other posts you might like:
Shell Scripting - Best Practices
All posts with label: bash