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You can output a character after the normal output and then strip it:

#capture the output of "$@" (arguments run as a command)
#into the exact_output` variable
exact_output() 
{
    exact_output=$( "$@" && printf X ) && 
    exact_output=${exact_output%X}
}

You can output a character after the normal output and then strip it:

#capture the output of "$@" (arguments run as a command)
#into the exact_output` variable
exact_output() 
{
    exact_output=$( "$@" && printf X ) && 
    exact_output=${exact_output%X}
}

This is a POSIX compliant solution.

You can output a character after the normal output and then strip it:

f(){ s=$(printf "%sX" "$1"); s=${s%X}; printf "Captured: %q\n" "$s"; } 

You can output a character after the normal output and then strip it:

#capture the output of "$@" (arguments run as a command)
#into the exact_output` variable
exact_output() 
{ 
    exact_output=$( "$@" && printf X ) &&  
    exact_output=${exact_output%X}
}

You can output a character that's not a whitespace after the normal output and then strip it:

f(){ s=$(printf "%sX" "$1"); s=${s%X}; printf "Captured: %q\n" "$s"; } 

You can output a character after the normal output and then strip it:

f(){ s=$(printf "%sX" "$1"); s=${s%X}; printf "Captured: %q\n" "$s"; }