execline
Software
skarnet.org

The withstdinas program

withstdinas reads the entirety of its standard input in an environment variable, and runs another program with that additional environment variable.

Interface

In an execlineb script:

     withstdinas [ -i | -I | -D default ] [ -n ] variable prog...

• withstdinas reads its stdin until EOF.
• It then execs into prog..., with variable added to the environment; the value of variable is what was read on stdin.

Options

• -n : chomp an ending newline off stdin.

The other options tell withstdinas what to do if its input is not suitable as the contents of an environment variable, i.e. it contains a null character:

• -i : withstdinas exits 1.
• -I : variable is removed from the environment, and execution proceeds.
• -D default : the value of variable is set to default, and execution proceeds.
• neither of those options: the value of variable is set to whatever the start of the input is, up to the first null character; and execution proceeds.

Notes

• You can start prog... with "$ -u variable variable" to perform variable substitution.