Re: nohup.out placement so inflexible

[Paul Eggert]

Jim Meyering <address@hidden> writes:

> Please call the new option --output=FILE (no short-named option).
> If you do this, please also update the documentation:

I see one detail here that needs to be nailed down.

One might think that the user could easily implement the equivalent of:

  nohup --output=FILE COMMAND

by executing:

  nohup COMMAND >FILE

However, these two commands should have different effects when FILE is
a terminal: the former should send all output to FILE, whereas POSIX
requires that the latter must send all output to 'nohup.out' instead.

So, I suggest that the documentation and code make it clear that the
"--output=FILE" output means something more than "use the name FILE
rather than the name 'nohup.out'".  The option also means "send the
output to FILE regardless of whether FILE is a terminal".