Output from Run Shell Script action

Does anyone know what happens to the output of a "Run Shell Script" Automator action if there are no further actions? Does it simply get discarded, or does it end up in a log somewhere?

It's the same for any action, nothing.
The results passed on to the next action is generally just a list of file paths, or perhaps some text, or maybe a reference to a single item. In the "Run Shell Script" case, the result would likely simply be some text, perhaps as a list of lines.
So, if there are no more actions, any of those results are just dropped.
However, a list of files (or whatever) is actually just part of the results. An action performs some task on the input, or on the results from a previous action. In a sense, there can be said to be two parts to the "results". For example, perhaps an action changes some photos to black & white, so the photos will have been changed and then the paths to the photos (list of items) will be passed to the next action. The list of items is the only usable part for the next action, if there is a next action.
You can use Automator's "View Results" action after it to see the results, TextEdit's "New Text File" to create a file with the previous results as the contents, TextEdit's "New TextEdit Document" to open a new document with the results as the document's contents, and so on.

Similar Messages

Perl's __END__ doesn't work under Automator's Run Shell Script action

Howdy,
I have a large embedded data file in my Perl source file using the _END_ token. It works great at the command line, but when I copy and paste my Perl code into the Run Shell Script code window and execute it, reading the special file handle DATA always returns 0 lines.
Help?
-Eric

Originally I was using $@ to parse a string and get the result pasted by the service. That was a while ago. There, I noticed that some Japanese characters were messed up. Basically all the kana characters that come with voicing markers like が-ga (instead of か-ka) etc. I did not have the time to pursue that issue though.
Then, last night, I found that a colleague of mine had tried to use $@ to feed to a local dictionary application called ding (http://ftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/Local/urz/ding/). His problem was with characters that had umlauts. After verifying how he wrote his action I remembered that I had similar issues with Japanese.
Basically his command was "/path/to/ding $@"
That's supposed to use the selected string as an argument to pass to ding, which will launch a Wish application where the string is used as the searched item.
From Terminal, that works a treat. But the exact same line in Automator (with input as argument, not as stdin) messed the composition and the resulting string was not recognized by ding as a match to what it was supposed to match.
So, I tried a few things to get to the core of the issue and found that a simple "echo [accented characters]" was enough to reproduce the difference in string handling between Automator and Terminal. That difference is also reproduced on a number of person's machines.
I have a number of services that basically revolve on "run shell script" actions and involve 3rd party application outputs, preference files etc. so it would not be convenient to show that to you.
I have sent a mail about this issue to the automator list yesterday too:
http://lists.apple.com/archives/Automator-users/2011/Jun/msg00004.html

Run Shell Script action forgets which shell to use

My workflow uses a python shell script. However, each time I load the workflow the action goes back to using bash. If I save the workflow as an application it works correctly. Am I doing something wrong or should I submit a bug report?
I tried adding #!/usr/bin/python as a workaround to the start of the script but it didn't work. I'm using 10.4.6
2Ghz MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.5) 2GB RAM, Sony Artisan Monitor

I don't think that combo box actually has a direct binding to the parameters of the action. It's sole function appears to be that of dumping templates into an otherwise blank text area.
Edit Actually it does have a binding, but it's a value binding, not index. Hmm. Could be worthy of a bug report.

How to prevent Automator's "run shell script" to create fully decomposed forms of my strings ?

I am using Automator's "run shell script" and I am seeing that it outputs fully decomposed forms of my strings.
For example, when I set the action to "echo été" in a service (with "Replace selected text" activated) and run that into a Textwrangler window, I'll get fully decomposed forms that Textwrangler won't understand. But when I simply type that command into Terminal, I get my string in composed form.
The problem is not the display issue, but the fact that if I want to run grep for example in "run shell script", I will not be able to find the proper strings since the forms are different.

Originally I was using $@ to parse a string and get the result pasted by the service. That was a while ago. There, I noticed that some Japanese characters were messed up. Basically all the kana characters that come with voicing markers like が-ga (instead of か-ka) etc. I did not have the time to pursue that issue though.
Then, last night, I found that a colleague of mine had tried to use $@ to feed to a local dictionary application called ding (http://ftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/Local/urz/ding/). His problem was with characters that had umlauts. After verifying how he wrote his action I remembered that I had similar issues with Japanese.
Basically his command was "/path/to/ding $@"
That's supposed to use the selected string as an argument to pass to ding, which will launch a Wish application where the string is used as the searched item.
From Terminal, that works a treat. But the exact same line in Automator (with input as argument, not as stdin) messed the composition and the resulting string was not recognized by ding as a match to what it was supposed to match.
So, I tried a few things to get to the core of the issue and found that a simple "echo [accented characters]" was enough to reproduce the difference in string handling between Automator and Terminal. That difference is also reproduced on a number of person's machines.
I have a number of services that basically revolve on "run shell script" actions and involve 3rd party application outputs, preference files etc. so it would not be convenient to show that to you.
I have sent a mail about this issue to the automator list yesterday too:
http://lists.apple.com/archives/Automator-users/2011/Jun/msg00004.html

Trouble using Run Shell Script with python in Automator

Hi. I have a python script I want to run in Automator (update_puzzles.py). All it does is check, rearrange and update files and there is not supposed to be any input. I can get the script to run outside of Automator, in Terminal, by navigating to the right directory and typing "python update_puzzles.py"
I must not be setting up Run Shell Script correctly. I have it set to /bin/bash and Pass Input to stdin. The command line simply reads python /pathname/update_puzzles.py (where pathname is the path to the .py file, which I got by dragging the file onto the Run Shell Script command window). There are no actions before this in my workflow and the action after is View Results.
The log says Run Shell Script failed, and the error is "Traceback (most recent call last):"
Any suggestions?
Thanks so much.

If the script is expecting to do stuff with files in the same directory as the executable, you will probably need to add a statement to change to the appropriate working directory. The shell used in the Automator *Run Shell Script* action is a generic one that does not share any of the environment variables that the Terminal uses.

Can't add "Run Shell Script" in Automator

When I drag "Run Shell Script" to the right pane in Automator nothing happens. All other applications I've tried can be dragged to the right pane. In the system.log I can find the following message:
Feb 7 16:56:48 Bananaboat Automator[195]: Error : -[AMWorkflowView _addAction:Kör kommandotolksskript] : * -[NSTextView replaceCharactersInRange:withString:]: nil NSString given.
"Kör kommandotolksskript" is "Run Shell Script" in Swedish.
Any ideas how to fix this?

You might have a corrupted file in the action, in which case you could reload it with something like Pacifist. You can't get the digest of a directory, so for comparison, compressing a copy of /System/Library/Automator/Run Shell Script.action on my desktop gives me the following:
sha1 digest: c209b69777f6a3301d72ddf0eb0ad4e7d4230741
md5 digest: 09e4ade9056ada3294ffb93bd16de1a7

Cannot add "Run shell script" to workflow

Just like the subject says on an iBook G4, OS X 10.4.8. The previous solution of deleting the Automator cache file in ~/Library did not work for me. The console log does show an error when I attempt to drag Run Shell Script to the workflow error:
2006-11-25 21:15:32.909 Automator[545] * -[NSTextView replaceCharactersInRange:withString:]: nil NSString given.
I do have an updated bash installed using DarwinPorts, however that is installed to /opt/local/bin, which appears in my path before /usr/bin. This isn't causing problems on my cube, though.
Any ideas?

You might have a corrupted file in the action, in which case you could reload it with something like Pacifist. You can't get the digest of a directory, so for comparison, compressing a copy of /System/Library/Automator/Run Shell Script.action on my desktop gives me the following:
sha1 digest: c209b69777f6a3301d72ddf0eb0ad4e7d4230741
md5 digest: 09e4ade9056ada3294ffb93bd16de1a7

Setting a variable from the output of a shell script

I would like to use the output of the shell script "pwd" to populate a variable that I will then use to concatenate the argument to another shell script.
Below is what I tried, but that didn't work.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
set currentDir to do shell script "pwd"
do shell script "open " & currentDir & "/somedir/somefile"

Does an applescript always run from "/" or from the directory in which the applescript file is run?
From: http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2002/tn2065.html :
Q: What’s the default working directory for do shell script commands?
A: do shell script inherits the working directory of its parent process. For most applications, such as Script Editor, this is /. For osascript, it’s the working directory of the shell when you launched osascript. You should not rely on the default working directory being anything in particular. If you need the working directory to be someplace specific, set it to that yourself.

Running shell scripts from within oracle. A big task is forgotten

Dear List,
I have some shell shell scripts which do some tasks on the linux OS level.
I am calling the Korn scripts using a java class, which in turn is being called from a PLSQL function.
All but one of the 10 script works fine. This is the script which does the most work, and takes on average 40 minutes usually.
Why does Oracle forget the running of the shell script? I wait in my PLSQL function for the return code, but it never comes. The scripts I have not written myself !
I look forward to your reply on this matter.
regards
Ben

Hi
If you are using the Oracle database 10g, the new dbms_scheduler package allows you to run shell scripts. The dbms_scheduler.create_job procedure have one parameter called the job_action in which you specify the full path of the shell script.
I hope this will help

Is it possible to pass a variable from a shell script back to an Automator action?

Is it possible to pass a variable from a shell script back to an Automator action?
For instance, if I assign a value of foo to $var1 in my shell script how would I retrieve/pass that value in the next Automator action. I see that there is a variable called "Shell Script" but I can't any information on how to use it.

red_menace,
Thanks but I still don't understand how to pass a single value that was set in the UNIX scipt back to Automator has a variable. Take the example below, I write 4 varables to STDOUT and all 4 are stored in a variable named "storage". How do I assign 1 of these values to the Automator "storage" variable? For instance if I wanted to assign the value of $var2 to "storage" , how would I do that?

Run shell script as sudo user without giving sudo passowrd from normal usr

Hi ,
i am running shell script from my account with sudo user what is the problem in my procedure.
Please if any thing wrong in my procedureprocedure or any permission required please let me know.
here is the my procedure and sudo permissions.
[techm@ppsol04 ~]$ sudo su - dadm sudo -u dadm /u01/ora/tools/Dbmon/scripts/export.sh
Sorry, user techm is not allowed to execute '/u01/ora/tools/Dbmon/scripts/export.sh' as dadm on ppsol04.
[dchandu@ppsol04 ~]$ sudo -l
Matching Defaults entries for techm on this host:
env_keep=SSH_AUTH_SOCK, !authenticate, env_reset, always_set_home, !requiretty
sudo permissions :
sudo -l
Matching Defaults entries for techm on this host:
env_keep=SSH_AUTH_SOCK, !authenticate, env_reset, always_set_home, !requiretty
User techm may run the following commands on this host:
(ALL) NOPASSWD: /local/bin/hardened_profile.sh
(root) NOPASSWD: /bin/su - dora
(root) NOPASSWD: /bin/su - doraadm
(root) NOPASSWD: /bin/su - docenter
(root) NOPASSWD: /bin/su - tora
(root) NOPASSWD: /bin/su - toraadm
(root) NOPASSWD: /bin/su - tocenter
(root) NOPASSWD: /bin/su - hora
(root) NOPASSWD: /bin/su - horaadm
(root) NOPASSWD: /bin/su - hocenter
(root) NOPASSWD: /bin/su - agcfdwf4
(root) NOPASSWD: /bin/su - pora
(root) NOPASSWD: /bin/su - dadm
(root) NOPASSWD: /bin/su - pocenter
(root) NOPASSWD: /bin/su - agcfdwp4
Thanks
tech

Can you please explain what you are trying to accomplish?
To my understanding there is no such thing like a sudo password for a normal user. Sudo allows users to become root based on a sudo list (suoders). The user is then prompted for their own account password to run as super-user or root.

Running shell scripts from GUI

I'm trying to run a simple shell script (bash or sh) from the GUI (just double click it).
I've managed to run it by double clicking, BUT, it runs from my home directory (even if i add --noprofile or remove #!/bin/bash line completely).
How can I keep the current directory, or at least get it as a variable?
Thanks,

Hi
If you are using the Oracle database 10g, the new dbms_scheduler package allows you to run shell scripts. The dbms_scheduler.create_job procedure have one parameter called the job_action in which you specify the full path of the shell script.
I hope this will help

Error when running the OWB process flow from the shell script

Hi,
I am able to deploy the process flow succesfully but when I execute the process flow from the shell script,I am getting the following error.Previously it worked fine.
I had to make some chnage in the IP address,so i had to deploy again.
Connected.
SQL> @/oracle/product/owb92028/owb/rtp/sql/oem_exec_template.sql OWB_RTR LOC_P_REL PROCESS P_W_SOURCE "," ","
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
Elapsed: 00:00:00.01
Stage 1: Decoding Parameters
| location_name=LOC_P_REL
| task_type=ProcessFlow
| task_name=P_W_SOURCE
Stage 2: Opening Task
declare
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01422: exact fetch returns more than requested number of rows
ORA-06512: at "OWB_RTR.WB_RT_API_EXEC", line 17
ORA-06512: at "OWB_RTR.WB_RT_API_EXEC", line 137
ORA-06512: at "OWB_RTR.WB_RT_API_EXEC", line 164
ORA-06512: at line 205
Thanks in advance.
Vinay

Hi Kamal and kanakam kolla,
This is just to let you know that,I solved my problem little differently by creating a new location and deployed the process flow.Now my process flow is working fine when i call from the shell script.What i see is that, it does not update properly when we update and redeploy the process flow.So far this is the work arround i could think off and i succesfully tested this.
Thank you Kamal and kanakam kolla,for giving a thought towards my problem.
Thanks
Vinay

How to run shell script using External Process in Process Flow?

Hi,
We can run external process using Process flow.
I would like to run shell script as external process in Process flow.
Could any one please explain it?
Thanks and regards
Gowtham Sen.

HI,
As you said I tried this case. I got the following error. The script is running successfully while I tested at unix command prompt.
The error is as follows..
tarting Execution PFPS_SMPL_RUNSHELL
Starting Task PFPS_SMPL_RUNSHELL
Starting Task PFPS_SMPL_RUNSHELL:EXTERNALPROCESS
/SOURCE_FILES/CollectFiles.sh: line 1: ls: command not found
/SOURCE_FILES/CollectFiles.sh: line 1: wc: command not found
/SOURCE_FILES/CollectFiles.sh: line 1: ls: command not found
Completing Task PFPS_SMPL_RUNSHELL:EXTERNALPROCESS
Starting Task PFPS_SMPL_RUNSHELL:EXTERNALPROCESS_1
SQL*Plus: Release 10.1.0.2.0 - Production on Fri Sep 29 22:57:39 2006
Copyright (c) 1982, 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.
ERROR:
ORA-12545: Connect failed because target host or object does not exist
Enter user-name: SP2-0306: Invalid option.
Usage: CONN[ECT] [logon] [AS {SYSDBA|SYSOPER}]
where <logon> ::= <username>[<password>][@<connect_identifier>] | /
Enter user-name: SP2-0306: Invalid option.
Usage: CONN[ECT] [logon] [AS {SYSDBA|SYSOPER}]
where <logon> ::= <username>[<password>][@<connect_identifier>] | /
SP2-0157: unable to CONNECT to ORACLE after 3 attempts, exiting SQL*Plus
Completing Task PFPS_SMPL_RUNSHELL:EXTERNALPROCESS_1
Completing Task PFPS_SMPL_RUNSHELL
Completing Execution PFPS_SMPL_RUNSHELL
My scenario is---
I am trying to return a file name from one shell script. I created a external process for that. After completion of this process, I am running another script which takes that file name and trying to create a external table. The both scripts are runnning successfully. But while I am trying to run using process flow, its not coming.
And I am not getting the way to catch the output of external process and pass it as parameter as another external process.
Any suggestions are welcome.
Thanks and regards
Gowtham Sen.

How to pass video file name to run shell script

Trying to make an automator script that will 1. Start a video capture, 2. Stop video capture, 3. Rename video, 4. Run Shell Script. Here is the shell script:
for f in "$@"
do
echo "$f"
/usr/bin/podcast --server my.podcast.server --user myself --pass mypass --submit --file $f --workflow "my workflow" --metadata /path/to/file
done
Question:
Do I need to create a variable in the automator script to pass it to the script? If I need the variable do I also need to use both Set Value of Variable and Get Value of Variable? If I don't need a variable does $f need quotes around them?

I'm not familiar with the terminal command /usr/bin/podcast so I don't know what it does but what i said is correct. to pass a file to this action you don't need any variables. the previous action in the workflow should output the video file you want to process, that's all. how you arrange that is up to you. it's clear that you have to fill in appropriate things in that shell script like " my workflow" and path to metadata. But if you have questions about how this shell action works you should ask people who made it.

Output from Run Shell Script action

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