use Perl

• Far too complicated (Score:1)

  by Aristotle (5147)

  #!/usr/bin/perl -w
  use strict;
  
  die "Usage: $0 questions.txt [morequestions.txt ...] > answers.txt"
      if not @ARGV;
  
  while( <> ) {
      print STDERR $_;
      print $_;
      print scalar <STDIN>;
  }

  The key is that the question files must be given as commandline arguments, not passed in via redirection. The <> diamond operator will read from the files listed in @ARGV and you can read STDIN separately from it at the same time.
  • Re: (Score:1)

    by phaylon (6115)

    Yea, this is a suitable solution for
    
    foo.pl inputfile.txt
    
    But what if you want to do
    
    grep bar inputfile.txt | foo.pl
    
    instead?
    
    

    --
    Ordinary morality is for ordinary people. -- Aleister Crowley
    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Aristotle (5147)

      If you use bash, you can use process substitution instead:

      foo.pl <( grep bar inputfile.txt )
      • Re: (Score:1)

        by phaylon (6115)

        Far too complicated :)

        --
        Ordinary morality is for ordinary people. -- Aleister Crowley
        • Re:Far too complicated (Score:1)

          by Aristotle (5147) <pagaltzis@gmx.de> on 2007.02.12 10:35 (#53211) Homepage Journal

          It’s more reliable (/dev/tty isn’t always available) and more flexible (you don’t need Expect to feed it answers from a file, you just redirect standard input). But the clincher for me is that it’s still less and simpler code. Cf. Carter’s Compass.

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          Parent

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by phaylon (6115)

            Well, that's a borderline. IMO the API should always be nicer than the guts :)

            --
            Ordinary morality is for ordinary people. -- Aleister Crowley