Running C programs using pipes, how to input strings in terminal?

Question

This question is from the book Programming Pearls 2nd Ed., Column 2, p.20. It's a simple C program that uses a sign.c and squash.c files to sort and squash anagrams (display each group of anagrams on separate lines).

To test the program, I have to run the following line in the terminal:

sign <dictionary | sort | squash > gramlist

instead of using a file/dictionary, I wanted to enter a small list of words/anagrams and see if the program sorts and squashes the anagrams appropriately.

For example, entering the following words as the input

mile lime rot tor break

should give me the following output:

break
lime mile
rot tor

My question : what's the syntax to enter those words as the input? Neither of these works:

sign <"mile, lime, rot, tor, break" | sort | squash > output.txt
sign <"mile lime rot tor break" | sort | squash > output.txt
sign <'mile lime rot tor break' | sort | squash > output.txt
sign <'mile, lime, rot, tor, break' | sort | squash > output.txt
sign <mile, lime, rot, tor, break | sort | squash > output.txt
sign <mile lime rot tor break | sort | squash > output.txt

The complete code for sign.c and squash.c is here

John Kugelman · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-16 18:41:40Z

4

So you know, anything you write with < is going to redirect a file into your program. Since you want to input a string directly, you need something else. Try:

sign <<< "mile lime rot tor break" | sort | squash > output.txt

or:

echo "mile lime rot tor break" | sign | sort | squash > output.txt

answered Jan 16, 2014 at 18:41

John Kugelman

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