Re: "-dshow-available-fonts" vs. UNIX stdout?

[David Kastrup]

"Phil Holmes" <address@hidden> writes:

> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "James Harkins" <address@hidden>
> To: "lily-users" <address@hidden>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 9:36 AM
> Subject: Re: "-dshow-available-fonts" vs. UNIX stdout?
>
>
>> On 6/20/12, Ramana Kumar <address@hidden> wrote:
>>> probably lilypond isn't writing to stdout. maybe stderr?
>>
>> OK, let me refine the question. If it isn't using stdout, is there a
>> good reason why is it using something else? Or is it just a bug?
>>
>> hjh
>
>
> As a general rule, Unix orientated programs direct the main output of
> the program to stdout, and other informative messages to stderr.  The
> main output of lilypond is the pdf, which actually goes to a file.
> The informative messages (e.g. a list of fonts) continue to adopt the
> principle of going to stderr.

It would be arguable that an explicitly requested list of fonts is not
an "informative message".

For the record: if you call a typical GNU utility with bad options, it
outputs correct usage information to stderr.  If, in contrast, you call
it with --help, it outputs correct usage information to stdout.

In the first case, we are talking about diagnostics, in the second case,
we are talking about requested output.

-- 
David Kastrup