how to pass command-line arguments to a program run with the open command?

Question

Is there a way to pass arguments to a program being run via:

open -a /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app ~/my_executable

I have tried:

Answer 1

Probably the easiest way is to create a temporary shell script, e.g.

$ echo "~/my_executable arg1 arg2" > /tmp/tmp.sh ; chmod +x /tmp/tmp.sh ; open -a Terminal /tmp/tmp.sh ; rm /tmp/tmp.sh

Answer 2

You can find your answer by running open without arguments:

% open Usage: open [-e] [-t] [-f] [-W] [-R] [-n] [-g] [-h] [-b <bundle identifier>] [-a <application>] [filenames] [--args arguments]

[...]

--args All remaining arguments are passed in argv to the application's main() function instead of opened.

[...]

You can see there is an option --args you can use it like this:

open ./Untitled.app --args arg1 arg2 arg3

I tested it on el Capitan (10.11.3) so I don't know if the option is present in earlier versions.

Answer 3

Yes, I know. need to manage another script. but think differently. you work not on Terminal, but on Script Editor. (not bash scripting, but AppleScript'ing)

property testScript : "/tmp/sh.sh"

set input to display dialog "args?" default answer ""
log input
tell application "Terminal"
    activate
    do script testScript & " " & text returned of input
end tell