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Why does `lspci --help | grep driver` fail?


lspci --help | grep driver fails for some reason, it simply prints out the output instead of getting filtered by grep.

If I run lspci --help | grep driver I get:

lspci: invalid option -- '-'
Usage: lspci [<switches>]

Basic display modes:
-mm             Produce machine-readable output (single -m for an obsolete format)
-t              Show bus tree

Display options:
-v              Be verbose (-vv or -vvv for higher verbosity)
-k              Show kernel drivers handling each device
-x              Show hex-dump of the standard part of the config space
-xxx            Show hex-dump of the whole config space (dangerous; root only)
-xxxx           Show hex-dump of the 4096-byte extended config space (root only)
-b              Bus-centric view (addresses and IRQ's as seen by the bus)
-D              Always show domain numbers
-P              Display bridge path in addition to bus and device number
-PP             Display bus path in addition to bus and device number

Resolving of device ID's to names:
-n              Show numeric ID's
-nn             Show both textual and numeric ID's (names & numbers)
-q              Query the PCI ID database for unknown ID's via DNS
-qq             As above, but re-query locally cached entries
-Q              Query the PCI ID database for all ID's via DNS

Selection of devices:
-s [[[[<domain>]:]<bus>]:][<slot>][.[<func>]]   Show only devices in selected slots
-d [<vendor>]:[<device>][:<class>]              Show only devices with specified ID's

Other options:
-i <file>       Use specified ID database instead of /usr/share/hwdata/pci.ids
-p <file>       Look up kernel modules in a given file instead of default modules.pcimap
-M              Enable `bus mapping' mode (dangerous; root only)

PCI access options:
-A <method>     Use the specified PCI access method (see `-A help' for a list)
-O <par>=<val>  Set PCI access parameter (see `-O help' for a list)
-G              Enable PCI access debugging
-H <mode>       Use direct hardware access (<mode> = 1 or 2)
-F <file>       Read PCI configuration dump from a given file

instead of the output getting passed to grep.

I have tried it both in zsh and bash and the behaviour is the same.


Solution

  • The error message itself tells you why it fails:

    lspci: invalid option -- '-'
    

    --help is not a valid option (neither is anything else starting with --). Thus, you get a usage message written as diagnostic content, and POSIX specifies that diagnostic contents belong on stderr (where it bypasses pipelines -- as is generally desirable, to ensure that diagnostic logs get to the human operator rather than being consumed by a pipeline).