I'm not quite sure about that, I would be trying to get back the file descriptor to use for a period and then close it... so if it fails to open, then I don't know if "redirection error" makes sense, but then again, I'm not sure what would the correct error be.
Certainly I would just be checking for a successful exit code from opening the connection.... It makes me wonder what the existing error message is, because it /does/ time out currently... but only after 10 minutes, which I think is the kernel giving up, and thus forcing the failure. My use case for reference, is trying to connect to a primary server, but waiting only 2-5 seconds before giving up and trying a secondary... as my goal is to achieve a connection as quickly as possible, but ideally waiting not waiting any longer than 5 seconds if the primary server is down and I must move on to the secondary. James On Thu, 2025-04-10 at 15:14 -0400, Chet Ramey wrote: > On 4/7/25 6:24 PM, A. James Lewis wrote: > > I've not been around this mailing list all too long, so I don't > > know if > > this has been debated before, but I have always attempted to avoid > > using external programs where functionality within bash can meet a > > requirement. Doing this allows my scripts to be more reliable, and > > not > > depend on those external tools being installed... > > > > I have however found it extremely frustrating to open TCP > > connections > > via /dev/tcp, because there appears to be no way to control the > > timeout! This means I cannot "try one server and move on to the > > next > > if it's not responding" etc... the default timeout is quite long, > > so > > even a simple script to check a list of servers for a response on a > > given port is problematic. > > > > Is this a feature which might be possible in a future version of > > Bash? > > I'll look at it for a future version. One question: do you think a > connection timeout should be considered a redirection error? > > -- > ``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer > ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates > Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU c...@case.edu > http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/
