Nginx Version + AWK Not Working

Question

Today I've noticed that I can't use "awk" on "nginx -v".

I've tried running this command: nginx -v | awk -F/ '{print $2}'

This should of been output like this: nginx/1.4.3

But instead it gives me nginx version: nginx/1.4.3

Any idea why it would behave this way !?

Also you can't output it to file by running: nginx -v > file.txt

Answer 1

nginx must be writing that message to standard error, not standard output. If you want to pipe it, you have to redirect stderr to stdout:

nginx -v 2>&1 | awk -F/ '{print $2}'