Guys i'm trying to save STDERR to a variable for a portion of my ksh script on solaris.

I know i can create redirects to files as such:

exec 4>/tmp/lava
print "This will be saved to /tmp/lava and not screen"; >&4
print "This will be seen on screen" >&2

I want to save the STDOUT of a command to a variable and save STDERR to another without having to have files everywhere.

e.g tapelist=$( command blah blah )

I then want to check if tapelist contains anything and run stuff otherwise dont
i.e

if [[ -n "{tapelist}" ]];then
do stuff....
else
do other stuff
fi

If the command fails it produces STDERR output i want to save so i can print it out later.

So in my thoughts although i know this doesnt work :-

savestderr="";
exec 3>${savestderr}
tapelist=$(command blah blah 2>&3)

Then can reference the error message as ${savestderr} Any ideas?