Faking standard input on the Windows command line

windows cmd evernote
Ryan picture Ryan · Apr 14, 2013 · Viewed 26.6k times · Source

I want to use Evernote's ENScript.exe to create new notes, entering the text and title as arguments. The problem is that ENScript only allows the text to be entered via a file or via standard input.

For my current workaround I use a .bat file to write the argument to a file, then call ENScript with the /s argument pointing to the file to read it in, but that forces the default title to the temporary file's filename (a behavior I do not want).

So my question is: Is there a way to "fake" standard input on the Windows command line so that I can use an argument (passed from another program) to generate the note text? The beginnings of the script would be something like

ENScript.exe createNote /i %1

with the standard input following.

Answer

dbenham picture dbenham · Apr 14, 2013

You are looking for a pipe operation that captures the output of one command and sends it as input to the next. This is a standard capability in most operating systems.

The pipe symbol for Windows CMD is |

Your script could be as simple as:

@echo %~2|@ENScript.exe createNote /i %1

If your script is called MakeNote.bat, you would call it like

MakeNote "your title" "This is the text of your note"

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