ind

Ind is a subprocess output indentation software that comes handy for scripting purposes. It has been tested on various operating systems including {free,net,open}BSD, Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X on x86, amd64, alpha, sparc32, sparc64, PPC. The name 'ind' can be interpreted to mean "Indent to make reading output Not-Difficult".

A typical use case for Ind is when running a script that has several stages, each with its own status output. With Ind, one can easily indent the output from the sub-stages, making it much easier to read. For instance:

> echo "Stage 1, reconfooberating the ablamatron..." ind -p "--> " cat blah.txt
echo "Stage 2, burning image..." ind -p " " growisofs -Z /dev/hdc=randomcrap.img >

This will produce nicely-indented output that looks like this:

> Stage 1, reconfooberating the ablamatron...
--> This is a text file
--> with only text in it.
Stage 2, burning image...
...
...
...

Ind has several options that allow users to customize the prefix and postfix for stdout and stderr. To use the software, you simply need to provide the command and its arguments as input.

Overall, Ind is a useful software that can be used to make output more readable when running scripts with multiple stages. With its easy-to-use formatting options, it is definitely worth checking out if you are looking to improve the output of your scripts.