UNIX: How to run a program with a file as an input

Question

I\'m writing a bash script called \'run\' that tests programs with pre-defined inputs.

It takes in a file as the first parameter, then a program as a second paramete

Answer 1

The < operator redirects the contents of the file to the standard input of the program. This is not the same as using the file's contents for the arguments of the file--which seems to be what you want. For that do

./program $(cat file.txt) 

in bash (or in plain old /bin/sh, use

./program `cat file.txt`

).

This won't manage multiple lines as separate invocations, which your edit indicates is desired. For that you probably going to what some kind scripting language (perl, awk, python...) which makes parsing a file linewise easy.