Eclipse reading stdin (System.in) from a file

Question

Is it possible for Eclipse to read stdin from a file?

Answer 1

2015 update

There is a new Eclipse version, Eclipse 4.5 (Mars) which has fixed the issue!

This is the announcement and description of the feature: http://eclipse.org/mars/noteworthy/#_assigning_stdin_to_a_file

Stdin can now be assigned to a file in the Common tab of launch configuration dialogs.

As expected, this is a new feature of the just released eclipse 4.5 and will therefore not work in an older version.

Answer 2

This is surprisingly not supported in Eclipse and it seems there are no current plans to add it. See https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=155411 to follow and vote.

I will update here if it they do implement it.

Answer 3

On the "common" tab of the run dialog, under "Standard Input and Output" there's a checkbox for "file". but it appears to be only for output...

I'd expect to see 2 file fields there, one for standard in, one for standard out with the append options.

Answer 4

The solution for me (running on a Mac, using Eclipse CDT for a C application) was to add "< path/to/somefile" at the end of other arguments in the "Arguments" tab of the "Run Configuration" dialog.

Also check this other question for an answer involving launching a Java program in a suspended state and then attaching the debugger using Eclipse.

Answer 5

I don't see a nice way to do it using the standard Eclipse Run dialog. However, you might be able to do it with an External tool launcher and either use the standard "< infile" syntax or call a .bat/.sh script to do it for you.

It's not automated, which is what I'm guessing you want, but you can copy & paste the contents of your infile to the Eclipse console when you launch your program.