How to capture and display output from a task via Windows CMD

Question

Hi,

I've got a PHP script which I'm running from a command line (windows) that performs a variety of tasks, and the only output it gives is via 'print' statements which output direct to screen.

What I want to do is capture this to a log file as well.

I know I can do:

php-cli script.php > log.txt

But the problem with this approach is that all the output is written to the log file, but I can't see how things are running in the mean time (so I can stop the process if anything dodgy is happening).

Just to pre-empt other possible questions, I can't change all the print's to a log statement as there are far too many of them and I'd rather not change anything in the code lest I be blamed for something going fubar. Plus there's the lack of time aspect as well. I also have to run this on a windows machine.

Thanks in advance :)

Edit: Thanks for the answers guys, in the end I went with the browser method because that was the easiest and quickest to set up, although I am convinced there is an actual answer to this problem somewhere.

Answer 1

You can create a powershell script that runs the command, reads the data from the command's STDOUT then outputs the output to both the log file and the terminal for you to watch. You can use the commands Write-Output and Write-Host.

Microsoft's site: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/topics/msh/cmdlets/tee-object.mspx

Another option would be use find a tee program that will read input and divert it to two different outputs. I believe I have seen these for windows but I don't think they are standard.

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tee_(command)

Answer 2

I have always opened the log file up in my web browser. This allows me to refresh it easily and does not interrupt any writing to the file that windows does. It isn't particularly elegant but it does work!

Answer 3

Slow:

for /f "delims=" %a in ('php-cli script.php') do @echo %a&echo %a>>log.txt

or in a batch file:

for /f "delims=" %%a in ('php-cli script.php') do @echo %%a&echo %%a>>log.txt

Answer 4

You want the "tee" command for Windows. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tee_(command)

Powershell includes a tee command, and there are also numerous versions of tee for Windows available, for instance:

• http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/
• http://www.chipstips.com/?p=129

Also can be implemented in VBScript if you prefer.

EDIT: Just occurred to me I should also mention the tail command: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tail_(Unix). Tail allows you to read the last N lines of a file, and also includes a "file monitor" mode that just continually displays the end of the file in real-time. This is perfect for log file monitoring since it allows you to watch the log in real-time without interfering with the process that's writing to the log. There are several implementations of tail for Windows, both command line and GUI based. Microsoft's Services For UNIX packages (or whatever they're calling it now) also include a version of tail. Some examples:

• mTail
• Tail for Win32
• WinTail
• MakeLogic Tail

Some of these go far beyond just displaying the file in real-time as it updates and can send email alerts and colorize string matches, monitor multiple files at once, etc.