How to get exit code and stdout of a linux command at the same time

Question

I execute a curl [url] command in a Linux shell script. I want to get this command's exit code and its output at the same time without using a temporary file.

Is there any method to do that?

Answer 1

I'm assuming the problem is that you have an intermediary command that's supplanting the exit code of the last command.

To get around this, just store the exit code and stdout in variables:

OUTPUT=$(curl example.org)
EXIT_CODE=$?

then you can simply output these either in the same line:

echo "$EXIT_CODE: $OUTPUT"

or call them separately as needed.

Answer 2

(I don't have enough reputation points to comment on user559633's answer.)

Apparently this won't work if you send STDOUT to a local variable:

test.sh:

#!/bin/bash

function test1 () {
    OUTPUT=$( ping -c 1 -W 1 blah.org )
    EXIT_CODE=$?
    echo "$EXIT_CODE: $OUTPUT"
}

function test2 () {
    local OUTPUT=$( ping -c 1 -W 1 blah.org )
    EXIT_CODE=$?
    echo "$EXIT_CODE: $OUTPUT"
}

test1
test2

Output:

# ./test.sh
1: PING blah.org (205.150.150.140) 56(84) bytes of data.

--- blah.org ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 0ms
0: PING blah.org (205.150.150.140) 56(84) bytes of data.

--- blah.org ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 0ms

Note the exitcode from test1 is 1, but for test2, it's 0.

EDIT: It seems that separating the local declaration from the assignment takes care of this:

#!/bin/bash

function test1 () {
    OUTPUT=$( ping -c 1 -W 1 blah.org )
    EXIT_CODE=$?
    echo "$EXIT_CODE: $OUTPUT"
}

function test2 () {
    local OUTPUT
    OUTPUT=$( ping -c 1 -W 1 blah.org )
    EXIT_CODE=$?
    echo "$EXIT_CODE: $OUTPUT"
}

test1
test2

Output:

1: PING blah.org (205.150.150.140) 56(84) bytes of data.

--- blah.org ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 0ms
1: PING blah.org (205.150.150.140) 56(84) bytes of data.

--- blah.org ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 0ms