Scripting/Application Interface

[dcatalano]

Script interfacing application
I created a bash script to interface an application I wrote.

The intention is this. The application does not have command line arguments per say but prompts the user for information manually in the terminal. I want to write a script (for testing purposes) that has all the input for the program. Is there a way for the program to read in directly from the script that I created, the same script which calls/starts the application? In other words, the script starts the application but does not read in the rest of the "arguments", that are written into the script. Is there a way to automatically feed an application input from the terminal without doing so manually?

Please let me know if I need to clarify myself, thanks!

[hazel]

Yes, it's called a "here document".

<< EOF
input
more input
more input
EOF
rest of script

The lines between "<<" and your designated end-of-file marker will be read as input.

[dcatalano]

Thanks for the help. Do you know the details of what happens after the second (closing) marker? I am just curious.

[hazel]

Everything after the marker is treated as normal commands. But since the script hibernates once the program it launched is running (unless you launched it into the background using "&" ), those commands won't be executed until the child program terminates.

[alf55]

Take a look at the command "expect".