i3 FAQ - Individual question feed

Is there a way to read the i3 configuration from stdin?

Sun, 22 Sep 2013 22:58:49 +0000

As I generate my configuration file for i3 on every startup, it would be very convenient to read it directly from stdin instead of writing into a temporary file and passing it as a parameter to i3. So far i tried - *command* | i3 ; Reads the default configuration file (as expected). - *command* | i3 - ; Passes the content of the file as additional arguments. - *command* | i3 -c - ; Interprets "-" as a path, which obviously fails. - i3 -c <(*command*) ; Produces error message "i3: Could not lseek: Illegal seek". I found nothing on google and on this page, so I wonder if there is a way to read the configuration from stdin. Did i overlook anything obvious?

Comment by uzsolt for
As I generate my configuration file for i3 on every startup, it would be very convenient to read it directly from stdin instead of writing into a temporary file and passing it as a parameter to i3.

So far i tried

command | i3 ; Reads the default configuration file (as expected).

command | i3 - ; Passes the content of the file as additional arguments.

command | i3 -c - ; Interprets "-" as a path, which obviously fails.

i3 -c <(command) ; Produces error message "i3: Could not lseek: Illegal seek".

I found nothing on google and on this page, so I wonder if there is a way to read the configuration from stdin. Did i overlook anything obvious?

Wed, 25 Sep 2013 07:25:42 +0000

Did you try `i3 $(yourcommand)`?

Comment by whatevsz for
As I generate my configuration file for i3 on every startup, it would be very convenient to read it directly from stdin instead of writing into a temporary file and passing it as a parameter to i3.

So far i tried

command | i3 ; Reads the default configuration file (as expected).

command | i3 - ; Passes the content of the file as additional arguments.

command | i3 -c - ; Interprets "-" as a path, which obviously fails.

i3 -c <(command) ; Produces error message "i3: Could not lseek: Illegal seek".

I found nothing on google and on this page, so I wonder if there is a way to read the configuration from stdin. Did i overlook anything obvious?

Wed, 25 Sep 2013 20:09:51 +0000

Well, this would just send the output of `yourcommand` as parameters to i3 as far as I know.

Answer by Michael for
As I generate my configuration file for i3 on every startup, it would be very convenient to read it directly from stdin instead of writing into a temporary file and passing it as a parameter to i3.

So far i tried

command | i3 ; Reads the default configuration file (as expected).

command | i3 - ; Passes the content of the file as additional arguments.

command | i3 -c - ; Interprets "-" as a path, which obviously fails.

i3 -c <(command) ; Produces error message "i3: Could not lseek: Illegal seek".

I found nothing on google and on this page, so I wonder if there is a way to read the configuration from stdin. Did i overlook anything obvious?

Wed, 25 Sep 2013 16:11:17 +0000

No (as of v4.6), since i3 does a two-pass read of the configuration file to replace variables. That is where the lseek error message is coming from. In case you want to contribute patches to make it work (without making everything overly complex), feel free to submit them at http://cr.i3wm.org/

Comment by whatevsz for
No (as of v4.6), since i3 does a two-pass read of the configuration file to replace variables. That is where the lseek error message is coming from. In case you want to contribute patches to make it work (without making everything overly complex), feel free to submit them at http://cr.i3wm.org/

Wed, 25 Sep 2013 20:12:03 +0000

Ok, thank you for your answer. I might look into the codebase once I got a bit more time.