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Getting input from a string of commands

To tell each command in a string of commands to get its input from the command before it, type the following:

firstcommand | secondcommand | lastcommand

Replace lastcommand with the command that is to get its input from secondcommand, and replace secondcommand with the command that is to get its input from firstcommand.

The following example runs the program myprog and sends its output to the grep command. It then causes the grep command to look for all occurrences of the string `counter' in myprog's output and sends the grep command's output (all the lines of myprog that contain the counter string) to the more command. The more command then sends the grep command's output to the terminal screen (which is the more command's standard output).

myprog | grep counter | more

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