stderred

stderr in red.

About

stderred hooks on write() function from libc in order to colorize all stderr output that goes to terminal thus making it distinguishable from stdout. Basically it wraps text that goes to file with descriptor "2" with proper escape codes making text red.

It's implemented as a shared library and doesn't require recompilation of existing binaries thanks to "preload/insert" feature of dynamic linkers.

It's supported on Linux (with LD_PRELOAD), FreeBSD (also LD_PRELOAD) and OSX (with DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES).

Installation

Clone this repository:

$ git clone git://github.com/sickill/stderred.git
$ cd stderred

Important: In all cases below make sure that path to stderred.so is absolute!

32-bit Linux or FreeBSD

$ make lib/stderred.so

Export LD_PRELOAD variable in your shell's config file by putting following in your .bashrc/.zshrc:

export LD_PRELOAD="/absolute/path/to/lib/stderred.so"

64-bit Linux or FreeBSD

$ make lib64/stderred.so

Export LD_PRELOAD variable in your shell's config file by putting following in your .bashrc/.zshrc:

export LD_PRELOAD="/absolute/path/to/lib64/stderred.so"

On some Linux distros you can install 32-bit packages on 64-bit system. Shared libraries compiled for 64-bit doesn't work with 32-bit binaries though. It happens that 64-bit binaries call 32-bit ones resulting in warning message printed to terminal about not compatible LD_PRELOAD shared lib.

Fortunately Linux's dynamic linker has a feature called Dynamic String Token (DST). It allows dynamic substitution of $LIB token in LD_PRELOAD variable with "lib" or "lib64" respectively for 32 and 64-bit binaries when the binary is being run. Thanks to that you can compile stderred for both architectures and automatically use proper version of this shared library.

On 64-bit Fedora, for example, you need to install libc development headers for both architectures:

$ sudo yum install glibc-devel.i686 glibc-devel.x86_64

compile it like this:

$ make both

and export LD_PRELOAD like this in your shell's config:

export LD_PRELOAD="/path/to/stderred/\$LIB/stderred.so"

* Note that there is no support for $LIB token on Ubuntu.

OSX

$ make both
$ lipo -create lib/stderred.so lib64/stderred.so -output lib/stderred.dylib

Export DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES variable in your shell's config file by putting following in your .bashrc/.zshrc:

export DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES=/absolute/path/to/lib/stderred.dylib DYLD_FORCE_FLAT_NAMESPACE=1

Note: Installing on OS X will break the open command line utility. So things like mvim and open itself will not work unless the application being opened is already opened. It's because of flat namespace forced by DYLD_FORCE_FLAT_NAMESPACE which is required by DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES.

Aliasing

Alternative to enabling it globally via shell config is to create alias and use it to selectively colorize stderr for the commands you run:

$ alias stderred='LD_PRELOAD=/absolute/path/to/lib/stderred.so'
$ stderred java lol

Checking if it works

$ python -c 'import os; print "Yo!"; os.write(2, "Jola\n\r")'

Jola should be in red dress.

Configuration

Custom color code

If you prefer other color or you want to use additional escape codes (for bold/bright, italic, different background) you can export STDERRED_ESC_CODE with desired escape code sequence.

Here's example for bold red:

export STDERRED_ESC_CODE=`echo -e "\e[1;31m"`

Alternative implementations

Simpler and much less reliable solution when using Zsh is to use named pipes trick proposed on Gentoo Linux wiki. It has some race condition/buffering issues and breaks on interactive commands writing to stderr though.

Authors

Original concept and initial implementation:

• Asheesh Laroia

Current implementation:

• Marcin Kulik
• Brian Tarricone

License

You are free to use this program under the terms of the license found in LICENSE file.