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I run a sequence of latex commands from a bash script. Since the latex output polutes the scripts own output I would like to suppress it. But sending the output to /dev/null will make the latex process inaccesible for the user. Hence it could be killed only manually in case there is a compilation error. How can I control latex from within the script. I.e. suppress the output and exit the process in case of error.

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Did you try pdflatex --interaction=batchmode? – egreg Jul 16 '12 at 15:27
Try this: pdflatex -halt-on-error file.tex 1> /dev/null [[ $? -eq 1 ]] && echo "msg in case of erros" && exit With this, in case of errors, the msg will appear. Otherwise, the output will be send to null. – Sigur Jul 16 '12 at 16:45
@Thiago this appears to work, but hangs if the file.tex doesn't exist (which is one possible error). – Bruno Le Floch Jul 17 '12 at 16:08
So you can try to check first if the file exists. The variable $? has the result of any command. Usually it could be zero or not. You can test it. – Sigur Jul 17 '12 at 19:58
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@Sigur Can you turn your comments into an answer, please? – egreg Nov 3 '12 at 22:12
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up vote 3 down vote accepted

As asked above by egreg, I'm turning my comments into answer.

I'm using this command om my script and I'm satisfied with it.

pdflatex -halt-on-error file.tex 1> /dev/null 
[[ $? -eq 1 ]] && echo "msg in case of erros" && exit

In case of errors, the msg will appear. Otherwise, the output will be send to null.

Now, you can try to improve with a command to search for your file before running pdflatex.

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Not the best bash I've seen in my life... 1> is funny, so is the && exit. Also, [[ $? -eq 1 ]] is not the best idea, just in case pdflatex returns another (non-zero) code. How about (( $? )) && echo "msg in case of errors" instead ? – gniourf_gniourf Nov 4 '12 at 0:00
I don't know. For me, it works! But if there are better solutions, thanks for helping. – Sigur Nov 4 '12 at 0:58

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