how to pipe output from a command in its own shell?

Question

I want to put all output as it's happening into say so it can read my LLMs response

I found that tee will output the lot once you exit but I want it to say each response when they are given.

I think it's because the first command (ollama) is running in its own shell? is it possible to intercept that stdout?

ollama run llama3:latest | tee >(say)

currently (in some kind of pseudo code):

• $ ollama run
• input: hello
• llama: hello! how can i help you?
• input: you can't
• llama: ok no problem
• input: /bye
• $ say: hello hello how can i help you you can't ok no problem

desired operation:

• $ ollama run
• input: hello
• $ say: hello
• llama: hello! how can i help you?
• $ say: hello! how can i help you?
• input: you can't
• $ say: you can't
• llama: ok no problem
• $ say: ok no problem
• input: /bye

Answer 1

The following is from man say.

If the input is a TTY, text is spoken line by line.... Otherwise, text is spoken all at once.

Below is what you are using.

ollama run llama3:latest | tee >(say)

You have the say command reading input from a pipe which is not a TTY and therefore the text is spoken all at once. Try what is below instead.

ollama run llama3:latest | tee >(while read -r; do say "$REPLY"; done)

Here the read command gets each line of text from a pipe. Each read line is placed in the variable REPLY. The say command then gets each line of text to speak from the command line. This repeats until end-of-file is encountered on the pipe.

Evidentially, escape sequences are imbedded in the output. To determine what and where, I entered the following commands.

ollama run llama3:latest | tee out.txt

Below in the output as seen at the Terminal window after entering my test input at the >>> prompt.

>>> hello
Hello! It's nice to meet you. Is there something I can help you with, or would you like to chat?

>>> /bye

Below is a hex/ASCII dump of out.txt

% hexdump -Cv out.txt
00000000  1b 5b 3f 32 30 30 34 68  3e 3e 3e 20 1b 5b 33 38  |.[?2004h>>> .[38|
00000010  3b 35 3b 32 34 35 6d 53  65 6e 64 20 61 20 6d 65  |;5;245mSend a me|
00000020  73 73 61 67 65 20 28 2f  3f 20 66 6f 72 20 68 65  |ssage (/? for he|
00000030  6c 70 29 1b 5b 32 38 44  1b 5b 30 6d 1b 5b 4b 68  |lp).[28D.[0m.[Kh|
00000040  65 6c 6c 6f 0a 48 65 6c  6c 6f 21 20 49 74 27 73  |ello.Hello! It's|
00000050  20 6e 69 63 65 20 74 6f  20 6d 65 65 74 20 79 6f  | nice to meet yo|
00000060  75 2e 20 49 73 20 74 68  65 72 65 20 73 6f 6d 65  |u. Is there some|
00000070  74 68 69 6e 67 20 49 20  63 61 6e 20 68 65 6c 70  |thing I can help|
00000080  20 79 6f 75 20 77 69 74  68 2c 20 6f 72 20 77 6f  | you with, or wo|
00000090  75 6c 64 20 79 6f 75 20  6c 69 6b 65 20 74 6f 20  |uld you like to |
000000a0  63 68 61 74 3f 0a 0a 3e  3e 3e 20 1b 5b 33 38 3b  |chat?..>>> .[38;|
000000b0  35 3b 32 34 35 6d 53 65  6e 64 20 61 20 6d 65 73  |5;245mSend a mes|
000000c0  73 61 67 65 20 28 2f 3f  20 66 6f 72 20 68 65 6c  |sage (/? for hel|
000000d0  70 29 1b 5b 32 38 44 1b  5b 30 6d 1b 5b 4b 2f 62  |p).[28D.[0m.[K/b|
000000e0  79 65 0a 1b 5b 3f 32 30  30 34 6c                 |ye..[?2004l|
000000eb

This output shows the following:

• There is the escape sequence $'\33[?2004h' at the beginning of the file. This can be removed by setting REPLY="${REPLY#$'\33'*h}".
• The prompt >>> is followed by the $'\33[38;5;245mSend a message (/? for help)\33[28D\33[0m\33[K escape sequences and text. This can be removed by setting REPLY="${REPLY#>>>*K}".
• There is the escape sequence $'\33[?2004l' at the end of the file. This can be removed by setting REPLY="${REPLY#$'\33'*l}". However, since this escape sequence is not followed by a newline ($'\n'), the read command would return a nonzero value when encountering this sequence.

Below is a test showing the escape sequences and undesired text can be removed.

while read -r; do REPLY="${REPLY#$'\33'*h}"; echo -n "${REPLY#>>>*K}" | hexdump -Cv; done < out.txt

Which produces the following output.

00000000  68 65 6c 6c 6f                                    |hello|
00000005
00000000  48 65 6c 6c 6f 21 20 49  74 27 73 20 6e 69 63 65  |Hello! It's nice|
00000010  20 74 6f 20 6d 65 65 74  20 79 6f 75 2e 20 49 73  | to meet you. Is|
00000020  20 74 68 65 72 65 20 73  6f 6d 65 74 68 69 6e 67  | there something|
00000030  20 49 20 63 61 6e 20 68  65 6c 70 20 79 6f 75 20  | I can help you |
00000040  77 69 74 68 2c 20 6f 72  20 77 6f 75 6c 64 20 79  |with, or would y|
00000050  6f 75 20 6c 69 6b 65 20  74 6f 20 63 68 61 74 3f  |ou like to chat?|
00000060
00000000  2f 62 79 65                                       |/bye|
00000004

The above shows the escape sequences and undesired text have been removed. The same can be applied when the say command is used, as shown below.

ollama run llama3:latest | tee >(while read -r; do REPLY="${REPLY#$'\33'*h}"; say "${REPLY#>>>*K}"; done)

Below is a simplification which pass the same strings to the say command. However, there may be cases where this is an oversimplification.

ollama run llama3:latest | tee >(while read -r; do say "${REPLY#[$'\33'>]*K}"; done)

This answer was tested using zsh and macOS Monterey.

Answer 2

To pipe output from a command into its own shell, you can use the | operator followed by the command to launch a new shell. Here's an example in Unix/Linux:

bash
Copy code
command | sh

This will pipe the output of command into a new shell session, allowing you to interact with the output in that shell.