How to make echo only 'echo' once when using |-CodePudding

I am trying to setup an alias to automatically search for an anime on 'ani-cli'

Example of using ani-cli normally with no alias/automation

ae@phony:~$ ani-cli
Search Anime: Neon Genesis Evangelion
[1] neon-genesis-evangelion-
[2] neon-genesis-evangelion-dub
[3] evangelion-death-and-rebirth
[4] neon-genesis-evangelion-death-rebirth-dub
[5] neon-genesis-evangelion-the-end-of-evangelion-dub
Enter Number:

I've tried using:

alias ani-nge="echo 'Neon Genesis Evangelion' | ani-cli"

The alias does sucessfully look for the anime, but when prompted to choose which series, it returns an Error saying an invalid number was picked, even when I didn't type anything.

[1] neon-genesis-evangelion-
[2] neon-genesis-evangelion-dub
[3] evangelion-death-and-rebirth
[4] neon-genesis-evangelion-death-rebirth-dub
[5] neon-genesis-evangelion-the-end-of-evangelion-dub
Enter number: Invalid number entered

I'm newer to bash and the terminal, so I'm not the greatest at this. Thank you in advance!

CodePudding user response：

The problem is that you're passing input to ani-cli via pipe, and when echo is done, the pipe closes, which closes ani-cli's standard input stream (stdin for short), which ani-cli detects as an error. Then there's no way to provide additional input.

Instead, pass the query as an argument (which the docs say you can do):

ani-cli 'Neon Genesis Evangelion'

In the context of the alias:

alias ani-nge="ani-cli 'Neon Genesis Evangelion'"