Yes you can (provided you have Bash and a system that supports process substitution): command 2>&1 > >(cat - | cat - > fd1) | cat - | cat - > fd2 Note, th

Yes you can (provided you have Bash and a system that supports process substitution): command 2>&1 > >(cat - | cat - > fd1) | cat - | cat - > fd2 Note, the extra 'cats' are just to show a "string of commands". How to read this: When Bash sets up the file descriptors for 'command' it initially makes descriptor 1 refer to the pipe, and descriptor 2 refer to the terminal. So, the dup operator (2>&1) copies the fd in descriptor 1 (which is the pipe) into descriptor 2 (so after the dup operator is processed both stderr and stdout for command reference the pipe). Next descriptor 1 is replaced (the > operator) by a reference to a fifo created by the process substitution operator (the >(...) operator). So now command's descriptor 1 refers to the fifo created by >() (which itself contains a "string of commands"). Then, because stderr for command was made to be a copy of what was previously stdout (before modifying stdout) it continues to refer to the pipe Bash setup (the | operator), and stderr now flows out over the pipes to another "string of commands".