Question

I have a bash script that uploads a file via SFTP, with a command like this:

sshpass -pABC123 sftp [e-mail]  << !
   cd data
   put /path/file.txt
   bye
! 

I get an email notification from my bash script when the process is complete. I would like to capture the actual output from this command (the responses from the server or errors from sshpass) into a variable or text file and include it in my email as well.

What are my options to redirect the output. I know I can place commands into $() to capture their output, and I can use >> as well, but with the multiline input, I dont think these will work…

I have tried this:

SFTP_RESULT = (    
   sshpass -pABC123 sftp [e-mail]  << !
       cd data
       put /path/file.txt
       bye
    ! 
)

And I have also tried:

sshpass -pABC123 sftp [e-mail]  << ! >> /file.txt

and

sshpass -pABC123 sftp [e-mail] >> /file.txt << ! 

All of these simply return back my commands which I am sending to the remote server. I dont see any of the responses from the server. When I run the script form the command line with any of the above, I see the responses on the screen.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

UPDATE

I have accepted the answer from Lars Kotthoff even though its not perfect, but based on his answer and our discussion in the comments to his answer I figured it out. This is what I did:

First I moved the sftp commands to an external file called “sftp_commands”

echo $(cat sftp_commands | sshpass -pABC123 sftp [e-mail] 2>&1) >> sftp.log

For some reason that works.

Answer 1

Redirects work:

$ cat << ! > /tmp/foo
> foo
> bar
> !
$ cat /tmp/foo 
foo
bar