Simulating ENTER keypress in bash script

I've created a really simple bash script that runs a few commands. one of these commands needs user input during runtime. i.e it asks the user "do you want to blah blah blah?", I want to simply send an enter keypress to this so that the script will be completely automated.

I won't have to wait for the input or anything during runtime, its enough to just send the keypress and the input buffer will handle the rest.

Solution 1:

echo -ne '\n' | <yourfinecommandhere>

or taking advantage of the implicit newline that echo generates (thanks Marcin)

echo | <yourfinecommandhere>

Now we can simply use the --sk option:

--sk, --skip-keypress Don't wait for a keypress after each test

i.e. sudo rkhunter --sk --checkall

Solution 2:

You might find the yes command useful.

See man yes

Solution 3:

You can just use yes.

# yes "" | someCommand

Solution 4:

Here is sample usage using expect:

#!/usr/bin/expect
set timeout 360
spawn my_command # Replace with your command.
expect "Do you want to continue?" { send "\r" }

Check: man expect for further information.