Simulating ENTER keypress in bash script

linux bash ubuntu shell
tobbr picture tobbr · Jun 7, 2011 · Viewed 216.9k times · Source

I've created a really simple bash script that runs a few commands. one of these commands needs user input during runtime. i.e it asks the user "do you want to blah blah blah?", I want to simply send an enter keypress to this so that the script will be completely automated.

I won't have to wait for the input or anything during runtime, its enough to just send the keypress and the input buffer will handle the rest.

Answer

Tilman Vogel picture Tilman Vogel · Jun 7, 2011 
echo -ne '\n' | <yourfinecommandhere>

or taking advantage of the implicit newline that echo generates (thanks Marcin)

echo | <yourfinecommandhere>

Now we can simply use the --sk option:

--sk, --skip-keypress Don't wait for a keypress after each test

i.e. sudo rkhunter --sk --checkall

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