How do I pipe output from node stdout to open command in Mac terminal?

Question

I have a node project where I output a filename to stdout in the terminal with process.stdout.write(filename + '\n');. How can I pipe this output to the open command or some other command to open the file (an image in this case) with the default image viewer?

node some_node_file.js | open -f As far as I know open waits filename as an argument, so it's just bash issue. — Vlad Churakov
– Vlad Churakov, Commented Jan 26, 2016 at 18:51
Piping into open -f simply opens the output text (a.k.a. the file name) in the default text editor. It doesn't open the image file with the default image viewer. — roscioli
– roscioli, Commented Jan 26, 2016 at 19:35
If you want it to open a specific application, you need to pass -a <appname>. I guess you need Preview for images. — Mark Setchell
– Mark Setchell, Commented Jan 26, 2016 at 22:07

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:30:59Z

1

As Mark Setchell points out in the comments, you will need to pass -a <appname> to open the file with a specific application.
However, you will need to pipe the file to stdout instead of just the filename, fore example like this:

var fs = require('fs');

fs.createReadStream("./test.jpg").pipe(process.stdout);

and then of yourse node yourNodeFile.js | open -f -a Preview.app

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:30

CommunityBot

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answered Jan 26, 2016 at 23:42

johnnycrab

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