How to pass a string to a command (Linux)

Question

I have a case where I am passing a content of a file to a command like this:

cat file_name.txt | my_command

But I want to pass a string directly, without reading a txt file content. So I want to have something like this:

"my file content as a string" | my_command

But of course I am getting an error "Command not found."

Please help me to come up with this. Thanks!

wzzrd · Accepted Answer · 2009-09-14T12:25:11.067

8

Just do

echo "my file content as a string" | my_command

edited Sep 14 '09 at 12:25

answered Sep 14 '09 at 12:19

wzzrd

yeees, sure :)!!! – Narek Sep 14 '09 at 12:22
No, no, no my question was very simple but I have casually missed that “echo” will work fine!, please roll back to your prev answer. – Narek Sep 14 '09 at 12:26
2

This is a wrong answer. echo "foo" will actually pass "foo\n". It has to be echo -n "foo". – Anonymous Sep 14 '09 at 13:34
That depends on what your my_command is expecting – wzzrd Sep 14 '09 at 13:35

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 14 '09 at 12:29

4

Echo is fine, with bash you can also use a here string if you want. For example:

grep tak <<<"foo bar tak"

Or:

foo="bar tak"
grep tak <<<$foo

answered Sep 14 '09 at 12:29

Kyle Brandt

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 14 '09 at 12:25

1

echo "my file content as a string" | my_command

answered Sep 14 '09 at 12:25

Mark

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 14 '09 at 12:21

0

You can simply type :

my_command "my file content as a string"

answered Sep 14 '09 at 12:21

Denis R.

1

Whether that would work, depends heavily on the command used – wzzrd Sep 14 '09 at 12:24
in my case that is not a solution, sorry – Narek Sep 14 '09 at 12:37

4 Answers4