nwn_script_comp: Info level logs sent to stderr instead of stdout in node

[PhilippeChab]

Description

• I'm spawning a subprocess via node to compile files.
• Process exits normally.
• Logs that should be printed via stdout are printed via stderr. See below.

[mtijanic]

I don't really think anything should go to stderr, should all just be stdout. Otherwise it'll be very hard to decide what goes where..

[PhilippeChab]

Failures to load a file from the system and similar errors should be printed via stderr, I believe.

It's a minor issue, I don't have a hard opinion on the subject.

[niv]

The long-standing tradition of sending log/human output to stderr is to support the common unix usecase of ./my_command > outfile. When my_command errors out (exit code > 0), outfile will be empty. If the logs go to stdout, they'll instead end up in outfile AND the human operator won't even see them on the terminal.

[mtijanic]

Looks like GCC sends pretty much all output to stderr - Compile errors and warnings, and even #pragma message "foo" which is an info level print. I don't know what a good answer here is, so maybe we should just follow suite?

[niv]

stderr is bit of a misnomer in that it's not just errors; that's in the POSIX standard as well as I understand it. The distinction here should be "user requested output" -> stdout vs "informational messages not part of the desired output" -> stderr.

Example: If the user requests to preprocess a file, the requested output is the preprocessed file content; and the info messages are all the warnings and pragmas.

Any further distinction would have to happen with explicit --pragmas-to FILE or something, I suppose.

[PhilippeChab]

stderr is bit of a misnomer in that it's not just errors; that's in the POSIX standard as well as I understand it. The distinction here should be "user requested output" -> stdout vs "informational messages not part of the desired output" -> stderr.

Example: If the user requests to preprocess a file, the requested output is the preprocessed file content; and the info messages are all the warnings and pragmas.

Thanks for the explication, it does make sense.

Any further distinction would have to happen with explicit --pragmas-to FILE or something, I suppose.

Feel free to close the issue, it is not a blocker on my side.