Windows terminal not recognizing "<" operator for file redirection

Question

I am trying to write a program where I have to use file redirection to cin text from another text file. I'm seeing that I should be able to use .\a.exe < inputFile.txt, but for whatever reason my windows terminal does not recognize "<". This is the error I got :

At line:1 char:14
+ .\a.exe 1000 <input1L.txt
+              ~
The '<' operator is reserved for future use.
    + CategoryInfo          : ParserError: (:) [], ParentContainsErrorRecordException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : RedirectionNotSupported

I don't know why it's not recognizing it and I don't know how to fix it.

That looks like a PowerShell error message, not a "normal" command-prompt ("DOS prompt") error message. — Some programmer dude, Nov 25 '19 at 14:56
@DiegoBascans That re-directs output to a file. Anyway, this is a dupe. — sweenish, Nov 25 '19 at 15:02
@DiegoBascans `<` is commonly used for *input* redirection, to redirect standard input from a file. Except in PowerShell, apparently. — Some programmer dude, Nov 25 '19 at 15:02
Also, this one: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11447598/redirecting-standard-input-output-in-windows-powershell — sweenish, Nov 25 '19 at 15:05

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 25 '19 at 15:25

As the error message says, the < operator isn't implemented, but in practice you can work around this by piping (|) instead.

In your example, instead of this:

.\a.exe 1000 <input1L.txt

You should be able to write this:

Get-Content input1L.txt | .\a.exe 1000

(presuming your .\a.exe accepts standard input).

Windows terminal not recognizing "<" operator for file redirection

1 Answers1