Open terminal and run command, from the command line

Question

I am looking for a way to launch a terminal session from the command line on Ubuntu, something like this:

#/usr/bin/env bash

terminal -c 'node server.js'

if there is some cross-platform tool that also works on MacOS that'd be nice.

So I tried this:

gnome-terminal -- 'echo "foo" | bash'

and I got this:

And when I try this:

gnome-terminal --tab -- echo 'ts-node /home/oleg/codes/typeaware/doc-gen/lang/typescript/api/src/.test/express.test.ts' | bash

nothing happens, the gnome-terminal never opens.

Solution

Your initial command, gnome-terminal -- 'echo "foo" | bash', attempts to run a program named literally echo␣"foo"␣|␣bash, which you most likely don't have on your system.

The correct syntax would be gnome-terminal -- sh -c 'echo "foo" | bash', but it would not help, unless you actually have an executable named foo. You can see that the syntax is correct by trying

gnome-terminal -- sh -c 'echo "date; sleep 2" | bash'

But this is just a very complicated way of saying

gnome-terminal -- bash -c 'date; sleep 2'

As for the intended command, it probably should be

gnome-terminal --tab -- bash -c 'ts-node /home/oleg/codes/typeaware/doc-gen/lang/typescript/api/src/.test/express.test.ts'

Comments

[Admin]

The correct command would be gnome-terminal -- sh -c 'echo "foo"; bash' or gnome-terminal -- bash -c 'echo "foo"; bash'

[Alexander Mills]

thanks, yeah these work well, one problem remaining is when I use ctrl-c the terminal window closes, I want to keep it open and drop into the shell after killing the process originally run. I tried a few things like gnome-terminal -- bash -c 'cmd && bash' but doesn't always work.

[Alexander Mills]

I am also looking to add the command to the bash history. I can add it to the bash history with history -s 'cmd' but it's not showing up in the history when I hit the up arrow when using the history -s command in my gnome-terminal command.

[Alexander Mills]

This will trap the SIGINT, but it fails to add the command to bash history gnome-terminal -- bash -c 'history -s cmd; trap bash SIGINT; cmd;