[robertduncan]

Error detection is much easier with pipefail:

http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Pipelines....

"If pipefail is enabled, the pipeline’s return status is the value of the last (rightmost) command to exit with a non-zero status, or zero if all commands exit successfully"

[psobot]

Pipefail is awesome - I had no idea this even existed. Thanks!