How to get and copy a too long output completely in terminal?

Question

In terminal a command has a too long output. But when I scroll back I see it is truncated and only the last part is shown. In Gnome-Terminal and Konsole I have this problem. In xterm there's not such problem but I cannot copy the output in xterm.

How can I get the complete output?

score 12 · Answer 1 · answered May 03 '13 at 21:29

12

You could send the output to a file: command > file.txt (where command is the command you want to run and file.txt is the file you want to save it to) and then view it with gedit file.txt.

answered May 03 '13 at 21:29

Zelda64fan

829

score 8 · Answer 2 · edited May 04 '13 at 01:16

8

Use xclip

cat long.output | xclip -sel clip

If not installed you can do

sudo apt-get install xclip

edited May 04 '13 at 01:16

Seth

59,332

answered May 04 '13 at 00:36

razpeitia

181

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 01 '13 at 08:44

5

I know in the xfce4-terminal there is a option to increase the number of lines shown:

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For ubuntu Terminal enter image description here

Aside from that there is what @Zelda64fan said.

edited Jun 01 '13 at 08:44

22lk94k943 only

1,143

answered May 03 '13 at 21:33

GM-Script-Writer-62850

2,157

score 5 · Answer 4 · answered May 03 '13 at 23:11

5

If you don't need the entire output, you could pipe it through less: command | less. This would also save the bother of having to delete the file once you've reviewed the output.

answered May 03 '13 at 23:11

lotsoffreetime

159

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered May 03 '13 at 21:30

In xterm, autocopy on select should be the default. Try triple-clicking then use a middle mouse button (or emulated third button) to paste.

The same should work with other terminals, but you need to manually copy and paste.

There a many, many ways to do this. I like using script in some cases. Type 'script' from a command line to start it before you launch a command from the command line, then hit Ctrl-D to stop. If you don't specify a capture filename, 'typescript' is the default. Everything printed to the screen should be captured in the file.

score 2 · Answer 6 · edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

Save console output into a file:

tee command

tee command - read from standard input and write to standard output and files.

It automatically creates file and save, all the output of cmd ps -ax into a file named as processes_info in the same folder from where the cmd has run.

user@admin:~$ ps -ax | tee processes_info

script command

script command - make typescript of terminal session.

user@admin:~$ script my_console_output.txt

This creates a file named as my_console_output.txt and will open a subshell and records all information through this session. After this, script get started and whatever the console output, it will get stored in the file my_console_output.txt; unless and until the script ends when the forked shell exits. (e.g., when the user types exit or when CTRLD is typed.)

user@admin:~$ script -c "ps ax" processes_info.txt

it starts the script;
creates the file processes_info.txt;
stores the console output into the file;

end (close) the script.

Other example:

 script -c 'echo "Hello, World!"' hello.txt

How to get and copy a too long output completely in terminal?

6 Answers6

Save console output into a file: