How to make stderr of OS commands ran with "!" go to Sql*plus spool?

Question

Background

I have a long Sql*plus script that for some reason needs to run some unix commands using the exclamation mark syntax.

I write to a spool in order to have a log file at the end of the process.

The problem is that if an OS command fails, the stderr is lost and doesn't go to the spooled file.

Example code

spool mylog.txt
!echo alter user xxx identified by yyyy;
alter user xxx identified by yyyy;
!echo cp file1 folder1/
!cp file1 folder1/
!echo alter user yyy identified by xxx;
alter user yyy identified by xxx;
!echo cp file2 folder2/
!cp file2 folder2/
spool off

If one cp fails, I wouldn't know just by looking at mylog.txt

Obviously doing !cp file1 folder1/ &> mylog.txt would only mess up the log beeing spooled to in unpredictable ways.

Question

What can be done in order for the the stderr of the unix commands be writen to the file beeing spooled to ?

Update

I tried lc.'s suggestion, appending 2>&1 at the end of every cp command in order to redirect stderr to stdout but I get this:

Enter value for 1:

Update 2

SET DEFINE OFF made it to not prompt for a value. It allowed me to discover that it's not only stderr that doesn't get spooled: stdout doesn't either. It seems that everything executed with "!" is un-spool-able.

Answer 1

Actually, the stdout and stderr are not lost but they won't go in the spool file.

Given the script echo.sql :

spool sql.out
select 1 from dual ;
!echo 1
!invalid command
spool off

If you launch your script from a shell as so :

sqlplus *connect string*  @echo.sql > host.out 2> host.err

You will get the output from your sql command in sql.out, the output from echo in host.out and the error message in host.err. If you're launching your script non interactively -from a cron or something- you'll have to capture stdout/stderr as you would do any other non sql*plus script.

Edit regarding comment

With the option SET TERMOUT ON in the script file you will have the output of your sql commands both in the spool file and stdout.

So finally, if you want everything in one file you can call your script as so :

sqlplus *connect string*  @echo.sql &>echo.log

You will still have the output of just the sql in the spool file.

Answer 2

You can append a 2>&1 to each command to redirect stderr to stdout.

Answer 3

If you want to send shell command output to your sqlplus spool file, you can't do it while SPOOL has the file locked for writing. Here's the sequence in the .sql script that worked for me:

SPOOL out.log

...sql stuff here...

SPOOL OFF

host ps -eaf | grep something 1>>out.log

SPOOL out.log APPEND

...more sql stuff...