How to conceal a segmentation fault in a bash script

Question

I use a program that works properly and results in desirable output at the end of its operation with no memory leak or any other specific issue, but then it issues a segmentation fault at the point it exits. I have been trying to hide this harmless but annoying error from the end user when using this program by redirecting the standard error to Null:

program options >file 2>/dev/null

But this doesn't work and the error shows up in the middle of the script's outputs each time I run the program. What is exactly happening here, and how can I hide the unwanted error? I'm on Yosemite.

Answer 1

From the Bad Idea Department:

program options >file 2>/dev/null | cat

It seems that bash won’t complain about segmentation faults in programs whose output is piped elsewhere. So just pipe your output anywhere. cat is a good choice, since it just echos the text it was sent. Or pipe to the null command, :, so you can put an emoji in your script:

program options >file 2>/dev/null |:

It should be obvious that this can hide other, more severe problems, and so you should fix the segmentation fault if at all possible.