tee Command in Linux

This tutorial explains Linux “tee” command, options and its usage with examples.

tee – Displays the output of a program and copies it into a file.

DESCRIPTION

The tee command reads standard input, then writes the output of a program to standard output and simultaneously copies it into the specified file or files.

SYNOPSIS

tee [ -a ] [ File … ]

OPTIONS

-a
Adds the output to the end of File instead of writing over it.

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EXAMPLES

1. Write output to stdout, and also to a file

The following command displays output only on the screen (stdout).

$ ls

The following command writes the output only to the file and not to the screen.

$ ls > file

The following command (with the help of tee command) writes the output both to the screen (stdout) and to the file.

$ ls | tee file1.txt

2. You can instruct tee command to append to the file using the option –a as shown below

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$ ls | tee –a fileq.txt

3. You can also write the output to multiple files as shown below.

$ ls | tee file1 file2 file3

4. Write the output to two commands

You can also use tee command to store the output of a command to a file and redirect the same output as an input to another command.

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The following command will long list directory contents, store it in abc.txt and then count the no. of lines and echo it

$ ls -l | tee abc.txt | wc -l

Sanfoundry Global Education & Learning Series – 1000 Linux Tutorials.

If you wish to look at all Linux commands and their usage examples, go to Linux Commands Tutorial.

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Manish Bhojasia - Founder & CTO at Sanfoundry
Manish Bhojasia, a technology veteran with 20+ years @ Cisco & Wipro, is Founder and CTO at Sanfoundry. He lives in Bangalore, and focuses on development of Linux Kernel, SAN Technologies, Advanced C, Data Structures & Alogrithms. Stay connected with him at LinkedIn.

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