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I have an executable file (Something.exe) that takes in two inputs when I run it. For example it does something like this:

    My-MacBook:Folder my$ ./Something.exe
    Enter first input: someimage.tif
    Enter second input: x y z coordinates 
    123 456 23.00000 24.0000 59.345

I run the program and enter the two inputs separately when prompted and then the program gives results.

However, how can I enter the whole process into a single line, meaning:

    My-MacBook:Folder my$ ./Something.exe someimage.tif x y z coordinates
    123 456 23.00000 24.0000 59.345

How do I do this in a single line on the terminal so I don't have to type in the inputs when prompted? Is there something that I need to tweak in the programs code? The program is written in Fortran 90.

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    Look for "getting arguments" if you want to tweak the program... genomeek.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/… Commented Jan 26, 2017 at 22:09
  • @ Mark Setchell Thank you! I will check into this. Commented Jan 26, 2017 at 22:22
  • Do you mean you want to run the program lots of times with the same image but different coordinates? Maybe you could show the first 3 commands you would run if you got the answer you wanted... Commented Jan 26, 2017 at 22:26

3 Answers 3

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If the program is just reading from stdin, you can simply do

printf '%s\n%s\n' 'someimage.tif' 'x y z coordinates' | ./Something.exe

Or if the shell you're using is bash:

echo $'someimage.tif\nx y z coordinates' | ./Something.exe
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2 Comments

Hello! The printf worked. Thank you!! If it's not too much trouble, would you mind please explaining what the '%s\n%s\n'?
@Guest See man 1 printf for the command and man 3 printf for the format string. Basically, the first argument is a string that describes how to format the output. %s means "output the next argument here (as a string)"; \n means "output a newline (line break)".
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One classic way of pushing commandline arguments into an interactive commandline program is to use an expect script. For your example exe, here is an expect script that should work:

#!/usr/bin/env expect
set tif [lindex $argv 0]
set x [lindex $argv 1] 
set y [lindex $argv 2]
set z [lindex $argv 3]
set coords "$x $y $z"
spawn ./Something.exe
match_max 100000
expect "first input:"
send -- $tif
send -- "\r"
expect "second input:"
send -- $coords
send -- "\r"
expect eof

Write this to a file, say, automate.exp, make it executable, then run it like:

./automate.exp someimage.tif xcoord ycoord zcoord
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IMHO, the easiest way to do this is to "put a shell wrapper" around Something.exe. Let's say we want the new command to be GoBaby, we would save the following as GoBaby:

#!/bin/bash
################################################################################
# GoBaby
# Wrapper around Something.exe, to be used as:
#
# ./GoBaby image.tif "x y z"
################################################################################
# Pick up the two parameters we were called with
image=$1
xyz=$2
# Send the parameters into Something.exe
{ echo "$image"; echo "$xyz"; } | ./Something.exe

Then, you make the wrapper script executable (just necessary a single time):

chmod +x GoBaby

Now you can just run:

./GoBaby image.tif "x y z"
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