If you want to get the stdout AND know whether the command succeeded or not, just use returnStdout and wrap it in an exception handler:
scripted pipeline
try {
// Fails with non-zero exit if dir1 does not exist
def dir1 = sh(script:'ls -la dir1', returnStdout:true).trim()
} catch (Exception ex) {
println("Unable to read dir1: ${ex}")
}
output:
[Pipeline] sh
[Test-Pipeline] Running shell script
+ ls -la dir1
ls: cannot access dir1: No such file or directory
[Pipeline] echo
unable to read dir1: hudson.AbortException: script returned exit code 2
Unfortunately hudson.AbortException is missing any useful method to obtain that exit status, so if the actual value is required you'd need to parse it out of the message (ugh!)
Contrary to the Javadoc https://javadoc.jenkins-ci.org/hudson/AbortException.html the build is not failed when this exception is caught. It fails when it's not caught!
Update:
If you also want the STDERR output from the shell command, there could be a couple of possible approaches:
a) Redirect STDERR to STDOUT 2>&1
- but it's then up to you to parse that out of the main output though, and you won't get the output if the command failed - because you're in the exception handler.
b) redirect STDERR to a temporary file (the name of which you prepare earlier) 2>filename (but remember to clean up the file afterwards) - ie. main code becomes:
def stderrfile = 'stderr.out'
try {
def dir1 = sh(script:"ls -la dir1 2>${stderrfile}", returnStdout:true).trim()
} catch (Exception ex) {
def errmsg = readFile(stderrfile)
println("Unable to read dir1: ${ex} - ${errmsg}")
}
c) Go the other way, set returnStatus=true instead, dispense with the exception handler and always capture output to a file, ie:
def outfile = 'stdout.out'
def status = sh(script:"ls -la dir1 >${outfile} 2>&1", returnStatus:true)
def output = readFile(outfile).trim()
if (status == 0) {
// output is directory listing from stdout
} else {
// output is error message from stderr
}
Caveat: the above code is Unix/Linux-specific - Windows requires completely different shell commands.