> (standard output redirection operator)

command1 -[options] [arguments] > <output file name>

The standard output redirection operator is used in bash to redirect the output of one command to a specified file.

./a.out > output.txt

Useful Options / Examples

Combining with diff

$ ./p3 > outfile.txt && diff outfile.txt correct.txt
1c1
< Hello World!
---
> Hello World!!

Break it down

• Sometimes it’s helpful to diff a program’s output with a different file, as is the case in many EECS projects at UMich. In the above example, the output of ‘p3’ is redirected to the file outfile.txt, and then diff is called to compare the contents of outfile.txt to the contents of correct.txt. The output that follows the command indicates that the contents of the two files do not match.

Splitting stdout and stderr

$ ./a.out
Hello from cerr!
Hello World!
$ ./a.out > std
Hello from cerr!

Break it down

• In the above example, a.out will print Hello World! to standard output, then Hello from cerr! to standard error. Since > only redirects standard output, the Hello from cerr! prints to the terminal normally. This is useful for projects where stdout and sterr messages are interleaved and you want to be able to see each one separately.