run a command, capture output, what form do you want?

[Skaperen]

when you run a command with the intent to get the output of that command, in what form would be most convenient for you?

1. what if the command is a network ping and you want each ping result as soon as the command outputs it? i already know i would not want to wait for the command to end and get all the output after that. well, in most cases, anyway.

2. what if the command is a text interactive command?

3. what if the command outputs one character at a time?

4. what if the output is binary with any byte code (0..255)?

would you want only whole lines, one line at a time?

would you want the whole output as one giant string?

do you ever need to send input to the command?

do you ever need to send it a Ctrl-C?