Output exceeding terminal window height

Question

I had run a program that resulted in many more lines of output than my current terminal window height. As a result, I could only see partial results...is there any way to get the full output?

I am using the bash shell.

Solution

You could send the output to a file:

$ your_command > /tmp/output.txt

You could then open up that file in any text editor and examine it at your leisure.

Or, you could pipe the output directly to a program such as less that is specifically designed as a text reader and can help you page through data when it is more than a screen-full:

$ your_command | less

Comments

[jenkhai]

Yes I am aware of redirection, but I was hoping if there is any way I could resuscitate my last output, fully without having to run the program again.

[Gilles 'SO- stop being evil']

@Sayan There isn't, sorry.

[tcoolspy]

@Sayan: You can only do that if you are running in some sort of terminal that keeps a buffer for you. If you use tmux (or the older screen) you can set them to keep hefty scroll-back buffers so that you can browse and even search the output quite a ways back ... but you have to be running in one ahead of time you can't roll back time and capture output that's already come and gone.

[Cbhihe]

- definitely looks like that "height" was meant instead of "width".