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TobTobXXyesterday at 2:30 PM2 repliesview on HN

Many unix tools already print less logging when used im a script, ie. non-interactively. (I don't know how they detect that.) For example, `ls` has formatting/coloring and `ls | cat` does not. This solution seems like it would fit the problem from the article?


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zahlmanyesterday at 3:15 PM

> I don't know how they detect that.

The OS knows (it has to because it set up the pipeline), and the process can find out through a system call, exposed in C as `isatty`: https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/isatty.3.html

> This solution seems like it would fit the problem from the article?

Might not be a great idea. The world is probably already full of build tools pipelines that expect to process the normal terminal output (maybe with colours stripped). Environment variables like `CI` are a thing for a reason.

skydhashyesterday at 3:03 PM

There’s a function isatty that detect if a file descriptor (stdout is one) is associated with a terminal

https://man.openbsd.org/man3/ttyname.3

I believe most standard libraries has a version.

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