How can I write a .sh file to automate input? For example I have a simple program that asks for a name and a few other things. I have so far
#!/bin/bash
echo alice
echo 5
I try to use it like ./program < ./file.sh, but it seems to take #!/bin/bash as input. I am wanting the first input the program takes to be alice and then directly after 5 which should terminate the program
why are you using file.sh as input stream ? just create a simple plain text file and keep each value on separate row
myscript.sh
#!/bin/bash
read "Enter your name : " a
read "Enter your age : " b
echo $a
echo $b
input.txt
Kashan
21
output
~$ ./myscript < input.txt
kashan
21
./file.sh | ./program
You can use the command redirection syntax:
./program < <(./file.sh)
Basically, it first executes the script file.sh then it puts the output it gets in a temporary file, then the temporary file is passed as stdin to the first program with usual file-redirection syntax.
The problem with your incantation is that the bash syntax you are using is for file redirection, where the contents of the file are being passed as input to the first program.
What you want to do is pass the output of the file.sh script instead of the actual text in it.
./file.sh and ./program are running at the same time. The "temporary file" is a named pipe, not a regular file, so it connects the components in real time. If you want ./file.sh to run first and to only start ./program after it finishes, then you would use ./program <<<"$(./file.sh)" instead.