Complex and chained commands

[VulcanTech-io]

I have this command that I want to run:
$(ps aux | grep '' | awk '{print $2}')

I am trying to add it to the default.json

I assume I need to split it up into args, but given the command's complexity, I am having trouble figuring out how to do that.

This is what I have so far:

{
  "name": "kill-dev-server-bash",
  "cmd": "kill",
  "args": [
    "$(ps aux | grep '",
    {
      "validator": "(\\/\\S+)+"
    },
    "' | awk '{print $2}')"
  ]
}

[FabianLars]

I think that counts as a single argument, no? Then splitting it up like that won't work, you'll either need a single validator string that contains everything (prob needing a lot of escape character) or simply set args: true

[VulcanTech-io]

I wasn't aware that I could set args to true, that is a big help, thank you.

[VulcanTech-io]

@FabianLars The formatted command comes out to:

kill $(ps aux | grep '/Users/danielbailey/Desktop/test' | awk '{print $2}')

Which copy and pasted runs correctly in a terminal, however, when I run this command with the following code:

#[tauri::command]
pub async fn kill_process(path: String) -> Result<(), String> {
    let full_argument = format!("$(ps aux | grep '{}' | awk '{{print $2}}')", path);
    println!("{}", full_argument);
    let output = Command::new("kill")
        .arg(&full_argument)
        .output()
        .map_err(|e| e.to_string())?;

    if output.status.success() {
        Ok(())
    } else {
        Err(String::from_utf8_lossy(&output.stderr).to_string())
    }
}

I am getting an error:
Unhandled Promise Rejection: kill: illegal process id: $(ps aux | grep '/Users/danielbailey/Desktop/test' | awk '{print $2}')

It seems that the argument isn’t being evaluated as expected. Could this be due to the shell’s behavior or the way the argument is passed to the Command struct? Is there a specific workaround or adjustment needed to ensure that the process ID is resolved correctly before passing it to kill?

[FabianLars]

ah right, kill is not executed in a shell context here. i think you'll have to use bash or sh as the cmd and kill as the first argument instead.