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docs: explain what docker run -a does

This adds a bit of documentation for the `-a` flag for docker run.

Docker-DCO-1.1-Signed-off-by: Cristian Staretu <cristian.staretu@gmail.com> (github: unclejack)
unclejack 11 years ago
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      docs/sources/reference/commandline/cli.rst

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docs/sources/reference/commandline/cli.rst

@@ -1359,6 +1359,35 @@ ID may be optionally suffixed with ``:ro`` or ``:rw`` to mount the volumes in
 read-only or read-write mode, respectively. By default, the volumes are mounted
 read-only or read-write mode, respectively. By default, the volumes are mounted
 in the same mode (read write or read only) as the reference container.
 in the same mode (read write or read only) as the reference container.
 
 
+The ``-a`` flag tells ``docker run`` to bind to the container's stdin, stdout
+or stderr. This makes it possible to manipulate the output and input as needed.
+
+.. code-block:: bash
+
+   $ sudo echo "test" | docker run -i -a stdin ubuntu cat -
+
+This pipes data into a container and prints the container's ID by attaching
+only to the container's stdin.
+
+.. code-block:: bash
+
+   $ sudo docker run -a stderr ubuntu echo test
+
+This isn't going to print anything unless there's an error because we've only
+attached to the stderr of the container. The container's logs still store
+what's been written to stderr and stdout.
+
+.. code-block:: bash
+
+   $ sudo cat somefile | docker run -i -a stdin mybuilder dobuild
+
+This is how piping a file into a container could be done for a build.
+The container's ID will be printed after the build is done and the build logs
+could be retrieved using ``docker logs``. This is useful if you need to pipe
+a file or something else into a container and retrieve the container's ID once
+the container has finished running.
+
+
 A complete example
 A complete example
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