Shell one-liner

Task

Show how to specify and execute a short program in the language from a command shell, where the input to the command shell is only one line in length.

Avoid depending on the particular shell or operating system used as much as is reasonable; if the language has notable implementations which have different command argument syntax, or the systems those implementations run on have different styles of shells, it would be good to show multiple examples.

11l

Translation of: Nim

The following works on Windows.

...>echo L(i) 0..10 {print("Hello World"[0..i])} > oneliner.11l && 11l oneliner.11l && oneliner.exe
H
He
Hel
Hell
Hello
Hello
Hello W
Hello Wo
Hello Wor
Hello Worl
Hello World

ACL2

$ acl2 <<< '(cw "Hello.")'

Ada

Works with: gnat

under a unixoid shell (bash, sh, ...)

echo 'with Ada.text_IO; use Ada.text_IO; procedure X is begin Put("Hello!"); end X;' > x.adb; gnatmake x; ./x; rm x.adb x.ali x.o x

Note that this mercilessly overwrites and later deletes any files x.adb, x.ali, x,o and x in the current directory.

Aikido

echo 'println ("Hello")' | aikido

Aime

$ src/aime -c 'o_text("Hello, World!\n");'

ALGOL 68

Works with: ALGOL 68G version Any - tested with release mk15-0.8b.fc9.i386 - Interpret straight off

$ a68g -e 'print(("Hello",new line))'

Output:

Hello

Works with: ELLA ALGOL 68 version Any - tested with release 1.8.8d.fc9.i386 - translate to C and then compile and run

For an ELLA ALGOL 68 one-liner, merge these lines of shell code:

code='print(("Hello", new line))'
a=/tmp/algol$$ s=/usr/share/algol68toc;
echo -e "PROGRAM algol$$ CONTEXT VOID\nUSE standard\nBEGIN\n$code\nEND\nFINISH\n" > $a.a68 &&
a68toc -lib $s -dir $s -uname TMP -tmp $a.a68 && rm $a.a68 &&
gcc $s/Afirst.o $a.c  -l{a68s,a68,m,c} -o $a && rm $a.c &&
$a; rm $a

Output:

Hello

AppleScript

osascript -e 'say "Hello, World!"'

Arturo

You may run any arbitrary code string directly using the -e (or --evaluate) flag:

$ arturo -e:"print {Hello World!}"

Output:

Hello World!

AWK

Maybe the most common way one can use awk is from the command line for one-liners, feeding the interpreter with an input.

$ awk 'BEGIN { print "Hello"; }'

A more "complex" and "real" example:

$ awk '/IN/ { print $2, $4; }' <input.txt

Select field 2 and 4 of lines matching the regular expression /IN/ (i.e. where IN appears)

BASIC

The name of the BASIC executable will vary (common ones are basic, bas, and bwbasic), but in general, a short program can be piped to the interpreter like any other language:

echo 'print "foo"'|basic

Note that under Windows (and presumably DOS) the two apostrophes (a.k.a. single quotes) should be omitted, since Windows doesn't remove them from the piped text (and the apostrophe is the comment character in many modern BASICs):

echo print "foo"|basic

Also, some popular interpreters (including Michael Haardt's bas and Chipmunk Basic) will include an extra prompt before exiting unless you include exit or system (depending on the specific interpreter's syntax). This sample output shows both with and without system in bas:

erik@satan:~$ echo 'print "foo"'|bas
bas 2.2
Copyright 1999-2009 Michael Haardt.
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
> foo
> erik@satan:~$ echo 'print "foo":system'|bas
bas 2.2
Copyright 1999-2009 Michael Haardt.
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
> foo
erik@satan:~$

Note that this is rather specific to Unix-like systems; most DOS and Windows interpreters are generally unable to handle programs in this manner, unless they were ported from a *nix system in the first place.

BaCon

BaCon is not an interpreter so we need to compile the code a short explanation echo a command to file a.bac then compile a.bac using bacon then run ./a

echo "PRINT \"Hello World\" " > a.bac && bacon a && ./a

Converting 'a.bac'... done, 2 lines were processed in 0.003 seconds. Compiling 'a.bac'... cc -c a.bac.c cc -o a a.bac.o -lm Done, program 'a' ready. Hello World

Chipmunk Basic

Works with: Chipmunk Basic version 3.6.4

10 sys("echo Hello world")
20 sys("echo for i = 1 to 10 : print i : next > zzz.bas && chipmunkbasic zzz.bas && zzz")

Output:

Hello world
 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
 10

Yabasic

system("echo Hello world")
system("echo for i = 1 to 10 : print i : next > zzz.yab && yabasic zzz.yab")

Output:

Hello world
 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
 10

ZX Spectrum Basic

On the ZX Spectrum, the ROM basic allows direct commands to be entered from the system prompt:

PRINT "Hello World!"

Bc

$ echo 'print "Hello "; var=99; ++var + 20 + 3' | bc

Output:

Hello 123

Binary Lambda Calculus

Several such one liners are shown on https://www.ioccc.org/2012/tromp/hint.html, such as

echo "*Hello, world" | ./tromp

echo "00010001100110010100011010000000010110000010010001010111110111101001000110100001110011010000000000101101110011100111111101111000000001111100110111000000101100000110110" | ./tromp -b | head -c 70

Bracmat

This example uses the predefined function tay to make a taylor expansion of e^x.

DOS:

bracmat "put$tay$(e^x,x,20)&"

Linux:

bracmat 'put$tay$(e^x,x,10)&'

Output:

  1
+ x
+ 1/2*x^2
+ 1/6*x^3
+ 1/24*x^4
+ 1/120*x^5
+ 1/720*x^6
+ 1/5040*x^7
+ 1/40320*x^8
+ 1/362880*x^9
+ 1/3628800*x^10
+ 1/39916800*x^11
+ 1/479001600*x^12
+ 1/6227020800*x^13
+ 1/87178291200*x^14
+ 1/1307674368000*x^15
+ 1/20922789888000*x^16
+ 1/355687428096000*x^17
+ 1/6402373705728000*x^18
+ 1/121645100408832000*x^19
+ 1/2432902008176640000*x^20

Burlesque

Burlesque.exe --no-stdin "5 5 .+"

Using the official interpreter.

C

Works with: gcc

The following code leaves the file a.out in the current directory (it does not delete it to avoid to call another shell/system dependent command/program). The current directory is not specified by ./ in every system...

$ echo 'main() {printf("Hello\n");}' | gcc -w -x c -; ./a.out

C#

Note: whilst small, this is more than one line.

Requires PowerShell 2:

> Add-Type -TypeDefinition "public class HelloWorld { public static void SayHi() { System.Console.WriteLine(""Hi!""); } }"
> [HelloWorld]::SayHi()
Hi!

Clojure

Note: whilst small, this is more than one line.

clj-env-dir comes with clojure-contrib.

$ clj-env-dir -e "(defn add2 [x] (inc (inc x))) (add2 40)"
#'user/add2
42

CMake

This only works with Unix systems that have the device node /dev/stdin.

echo 'message(STATUS "Goodbye, World!")' | cmake -P /dev/stdin

COBOL

Works with GnuCOBOL 2.0 or later

echo 'display "hello".' | cobc -xFj -frelax -

Longer, but avoids two relaxed syntax warnings:

echo 'id division. program-id. hello. procedure division. display "hello".' | cobc -xFj -

Common Lisp

Varies by implementation

Works with: SBCL

sbcl --noinform --eval '(progn (princ "Hello") (terpri) (quit))'

Works with: CLISP

clisp.exe -q -x "(progn (format t \"Hello from CLISP\") (quit))"

D

Works with: D version 2

requires rdmd

rdmd --eval="writeln(q{Hello World!})"

Hello World!

Dc

dc -e '22 7/p'

Delphi

Run in cmd.exe.

echo program Prog;begin writeln('Hi');end. >> "./a.dpt" & dcc32 -Q -CC -W- "./a.dpt" & a.exe

The output has the default Delphi header, before the output of executable ("Hi").

E

rune --src.e 'println("Hello")'

The --src option ends with the the filename extension the provided type of program would have:

rune --src.e-awt 'def f := &lt;swing:makeJFrame>("Hello"); f.show(); f.addWindowListener(def _{to windowClosing(_) {interp.continueAtTop()} match _{}}); interp.blockAtTop()'

Elixir

$ elixir -e "IO.puts 'Hello, World!'"
Hello, World!

Emacs Lisp

emacs -batch -eval '(princ "Hello World!\n")'

Or another example that does something useful: indent a C source file:

emacs -batch sample.c --eval '(indent-region (point-min) (point-max) nil)' -f save-buffer

Erlang

Erlang always starts other applications that can run in parallel in the background, and as such will not die by itself. To kill erl, we sequentially run the 'halt' function from the 'erlang' module (the -S is there to guarantee 'halt' will be evaluated after the io function).

$ erl -noshell -eval 'io:format("hello~n").' -s erlang halt
hello

F#

> echo printfn "Hello from F#" | fsi --quiet
Hello from F#

Factor

$ factor -run=none -e="USE: io \"hi\" print"

Forth

Works with: GNU Forth

$ gforth -e ".( Hello) cr bye"
Hello

Fortran

This example, stolen from the c example is subject to the same caveats. While contrived, FORTRAN as a one liner can easily handle some unique tasks. Let's plot a Bessel function:

$ gawk 'BEGIN{print"write(6,\"(2(g12.3,x))\")(i/10.0,besj1(i/10.0), i=0,1000)\nend";exit(0)}'|gfortran -ffree-form -x f95 - | gnuplot -p -e 'plot "<./a.out" t "Bessel function of 1st kind" w l'

Sorry, I don't know how to upload my jpeg file for the Image tag. Let's use the dumb display instead.

  0.6 +*------------+-------------+------------+-------------+------------++
      +**           +             +     Bessel function of 1st kind ****** +
  0.5 +**                                                                 ++
      |**                                                                  |
  0.4 +**                                                                 ++
      * *                                                                  |
  0.3 *+*   *                                                             ++
      * *  **   *                                                          |
  0.2 *+*  ***  **  **                                                    ++
  0.1 *+*  * *  **  **  ***  **  **   *   **   *                          ++
      * ** * * ***  **  * * ***  **  ***  **  **  ***  **  **  ***  **  ** |
    0 *+ * * * * *  * * * * * *  *** * * * *  *** * * ***  *** * * ***  ***+
      |  * * * * ***  * * * * ***  * * * * ***  *** * * **** *** *** ***  *|
 -0.1 ++ * * * *  **  *** ***  **  **  ***  **  **   **  **  **   **  **  **
      |  *** ***  **  **   **  **   *   *                                  |
 -0.2 ++ **   **  **                                                      ++
      |  **   *                                                            |
 -0.3 ++ **                                                               ++
      +  **         +             +            +             +             +
 -0.4 ++------------+-------------+------------+-------------+------------++
      0             20            40           60            80           100

Free Pascal

The FPC (Free Pascal compiler) comes with the utility instantfpc(1) or ifpc(1) for short (Debian or FreeBSD package fpc-utils):

echo "begin writeLn('Hi'); end." | ifpc /dev/stdin

FreeBASIC

' FB 1.05.0 Win64

Shell "echo For i As Integer = 1 To 10 : Print i : Next > zzz.bas && fbc zzz.bas && zzz"
Sleep

Output:

Frink

Frink is distributed as a single .jar file that will run in a Java Virtual Machine. On many operating systems, just double-clicking this .jar file will run Frink with a graphical interface in an interactive mode. By specifying a different main-class (frink.parser.Frink) when starting Frink, it can be run in text-mode interactive mode as well. These options and sample starter scripts for various operating systems are provided in the Running Frink section of the documentation.

The -e command-line option executes a command or commands and prints its value.

$ frink -e "factorFlat[2^67-1]"

Output:

[193707721, 761838257287]

FutureBasic

This is forcing the issue. FB has much more elegant ways of interacting with the Unix Shell.

window 1,,(0,0,160,120):Str255 a:open "Unix",1,"cal 10 2018":do:line input #1,a:print a:until eof(1):close 1:HandleEvents

Output

    October 2018
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
    1  2  3  4  5  6
 7  8  9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31

Gambas

Click this link to run this code

Public Sub Main()
 
Shell "echo Hello World"

End

Output:

Hello World

Gema

$ gema -p '\B=Hello\n@end'
Hello

Go

echo 'package main;func main(){println("hlowrld")}'>/tmp/h.go;go run /tmp/h.go

Output:

hlowrld

Groovy

Works with: UNIX Shell

$ groovysh -q "println 'Hello'"
Hello

Works with: Windows Command Interpreter

C:\Users\user> groovysh -q "println 'Hello'"
Hello

Haskell

$ ghc -e 'putStrLn "Hello"'
Hello

Huginn

Result of an expression is printed by default:

$ huginn -c '"Hello"'

Output:

"Hello"

Even with an explicit `print` function was used:

$ huginn -c 'print("Hello\n")'

Output:

Hello
none

Unless the last expression ended with a semicolon:

$ huginn -c 'print("Hello\n");'

Output:

Hello

Icon and Unicon

These examples work with posix shells.

echo "procedure main();write(\"hello\");end" | icont - -x

echo "procedure main();write(\"hello world\");end" >hello.icn; unicon hello.icn -x

Insitux

When Insitux has been already been installed system-wide (npm i -g insitux).

$ npx ix -e "(+ 2 2)"

Output:

J

$ jconsole -js "exit echo 'Hello'"
Hello

Here, the (empty) result of echo is used as the exit code argument for exit. And, since it's empty, the the default exit code of 0 is what's actually used. The exit command here is used to prevent the default behavior of jconsole (which is to start the J command shell) and to instead return to the OS command shell.

We could have instead used:

$ :|jconsole -js "echo 'Hello'"
Hello

for nearly identical behavior, but this issues J's command prompt before exiting. (But since J's command prompt is three space characters, this would be nearly invisible in many contexts, including here because the mediawiki implementation deletes those trailing spaces when rendering this page into html.)

Java

Works with: bash

These three lines work with Bourne Shell (or compatible) or C Shell (or compatible), or bash on Unix/Linux/MacOSX/Windows+cygwin

$ echo 'public class X{public static void main(String[]args){' \
>     'System.out.println("Hello Java!");}}' >X.java
$ javac X.java && java X

A user can also enter this as one (very long) line:

$ echo 'public class X{public static void main(String[]args){System.out.println("Hello Java!");}}'>X.java;javac X.java&&java X

Works with: MS-DOS

Compatible Environments (such as cmd.exe)

Works with cmd.exe on Windows (tested on Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600])

C:\>echo public class X{public static void main(String[] args){System.out.println("Hello Java!");}}>X.java&&javac X.java&&java X
Hello Java!

JavaScript

Works with: SpiderMonkey

$ js -e 'print("hello")'
hello

jq

$ jq -M -n 1+1
2

Julia

$ julia -e 'for x in ARGS; println(x); end' foo bar
foo
bar

K

Works with: Kona

$ k -e "\`0: \"hello\\n\""

Kotlin

The following one-liner works with GNOME Terminal on Ubuntu 14.04:

echo 'fun main(args: Array<String>) = println("Hello Kotlin!")' >X.kt;kotlinc X.kt -include-runtime -d X.jar && java -jar X.jar

Output:

Hello Kotlin!

Lang

This is an example for the Standard Lang implementation of Lang.

$ lang -e "fn.println(Hello World)"

langur

Linux

$ langur -e 'writeln "Are we reaching Fiji?"'

Windows

C:\> langur /e 'writeln "Are we reaching Fiji?"'

Output:

Are we reaching Fiji?

Lasso

From stdin:

echo " 'The date and time is: ' + date " | lasso9 --

Or alternatively:

$ lasso9 -s " 'The date and time is: ' + date "

Liberty BASIC

echo print "hello">oneLiner.bas & liberty -r oneLiner.bas echo print "hello">oneLiner.bas & liberty -r oneLiner.bas

Lua

lua -e 'print "Hello World!"'

Maple

maple -c'print(HELLO);' -cquit

Mathematica /Wolfram Language

echo Print[2+2] > file & math.exe -script file

min

min -e:"\"hi from min\" puts!"

Nanoquery

nq -e "println \"Hello Nanoquery!\""

NetLogo

Commands can be entered into the NetLogo Command Center. NetLogo is white-space delimited. Variables can be defined with the LET command and used in the statement. The CC can be in various modes, such as Turtle mode, where entered commands are ran as if contained in an ASK TURTLES statement.

Observer Mode

let x 15 ask turtles [ set xcor x set x x + 1 ]

Turtle Mode

right random 90 forward 10

NetRexx

Works with: UNIX Shell

Create a temporary file, execute the file via the NetRexx interpreter then delete the temporary file and any files generated via the translation. (i.e. Java class files etc.)

$ TNRX=`mktemp T_XXXXXXXXXXXX` && test ! -e $TNRX.* && (echo 'say "Goodbye, World!"' >$TNRX; nrc -exec $TNRX; rm $TNRX $TNRX.*; unset TNRX)

Output:

NetRexx portable processor, version NetRexx 3.01, build 40-20120823-0156
Copyright (c) RexxLA, 2011,2012.  All rights reserved.
Parts Copyright (c) IBM Corporation, 1995,2008.
Program T_dO7RQs5HPElq
===== Exec: T_dO7RQs5HPElq =====
Goodbye, World!
Processing of 'T_dO7RQs5HPElq' complete

NewLISP

newlisp -e "\"Hello\"
->"Hello"

Nim

The following works on any Linux system. With some minor changes, it should work on other systems too.

$ echo 'for i in 0..10: echo "Hello World"[0..i]' >/tmp/oneliner.nim; nim r oneliner
H
He
Hel
Hell
Hello
Hello 
Hello W
Hello Wo
Hello Wor
Hello Worl
Hello World

Nu

$ nu -c 'version | select version features'
╭──────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ version  │ 0.97.1                                                        │
│ features │ default, sqlite, static-link-openssl, system-clipboard, trash │
╰──────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

Objeck

Works with: UNIX Shell

./obc -run '"Hello"->PrintLine();' -dest hello.obe ; ./obr hello.obe

OCaml

$ ocaml <(echo 'print_endline "Hello"')
Hello

Works with: OCaml version 4.00+

$ echo 'print_endline "Hello"' | ocaml -stdin
Hello

Octave

$ octave --eval 'printf("Hello World, it is %s!\n",datestr(now));'
Hello World, it is 28-Aug-2013 17:53:47!

Oforth

oforth --P"1000 seq map(#sqrt) sum print"

Output:

21097.4558874807

ooRexx

rexx -e "say 'Goodbye, world.'"

Oz

This is difficult to do in Oz because the compiler/interpreter always wants the source code in a file and does not read from stdin. We can do somethings like this on Unix-like systems:

echo >tmp.oz "{System.show hello}"; ozc -l System -e tmp.oz
hello

With -l System we make the System module available so that we can print something.

PARI/GP

echo "print(Pi)" | gp -q

Pascal

See Free Pascal

Perl

$ perl -e 'print "Hello\n"'
Hello

More information about the many ways of invoking perl can be found in perlrun.

Phix

Command line option -e added for 0.8.1. Outer quotes only rqd if snippet contains spaces, otherwise ignored.
Most one-liners will probably start with '?' since eg "1+2" gives a compilation error.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Phix>p -e ?357+452
809
C:\Program Files (x86)\Phix>p -e "?357+452"
809

PHP

assuming you have the PHP CLI (command-line interface) installed, not just the web server plugin

$ php -r 'echo "Hello\n";'
Hello

PicoLisp

$ picolisp -'prinl "Hello world!"' -bye
Hello world!

Pike

$ pike -e 'write("Hello\n");' 
Hello

PowerShell

> powershell -Command "Write-Host 'Hello'"
Hello

Processing

The command-line tool processing-java takes a sketch directory (not a file) and so a simple program cannot be piped in from the shell using process substitution. However, a long shell one-liner may write a sketch file to disk, then run it, so long as the folder name and the PDE file name match, e.g. /Tmp/Tmp.pde

In bash:

mkdir -p Tmp; echo "println(\"hello world\");" > Tmp/Tmp.pde; processing-java --sketch="`pwd`/Tmp" --run

Output:

hello world

Prolog

Command-Line Options

$ swipl -g "writeln('hello world')." -t 'halt.'
hello world
$

$ gprolog --init-goal "write('goodbye'),nl,halt"
goodbye
$

$ yap -q -g "current_prolog_flag(dialect, D), writeln(D), halt"
yap

<<<

$ swipl -q <<< "current_prolog_flag(dialect,D), writeln(D), halt."
swi

$ yap -q <<< "current_prolog_flag(dialect,D), writeln(D), halt."
yap

Pipe

$ echo "current_prolog_flag(dialect,D), writeln(D), halt." | swipl -q
swi

$ echo "current_prolog_flag(dialect,D), writeln(D), halt." | yap -q
yap

PureBasic

Runs on Linux with(thanks to) bash. Path variables must be set as decribed in INSTALL.

$ echo 'messagerequester("Greetings","hello")' > "dib.pb" && ./pbcompiler dib.pb -e "dib" && ./dib

Python

Prints "Hello"

$ python -c 'print "Hello"'
Hello

Web server with CGI

The python CGIHTTPServer module is also an executable library that performs as a web server with CGI. to start enter:

python -m CGIHTTPServer

It returns with:

Serving HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 8000 ...

Quackery

$ QUACK=$(mktemp); echo "say 'hello'" > $QUACK; quackery $QUACK; rm $QUACK
hello

Via Python 3

As Quackery is implemented as a Python 3 function, assuming that quackery.py is in the module search path:

$ python3 -c 'import quackery ; quackery.quackery(r""" say '\''hello'\'' cr """)'
hello

R

$ echo 'cat("Hello\n")' | R --slave
Hello

Alternatively, using the Rscript front-end,

$ Rscript -e 'cat("Hello\n")'
Hello

Racket

$ racket -e "(displayln \"Hello World\")"
Hello World

Raku

(formerly Perl 6)

Works with: Rakudo version #22 "Thousand Oaks"

$ raku -e 'say "Hello, world!"'
Hello, world!

REBOL

rebview -vswq --do "print {Hello!} quit"

Output:

Hello!

Retro

echo '\'hello s:put nl bye' | retro

REXX

Note: Regina REXX is the only version of REXX that supports this type of behavior (taking it's input from a console stream).

        ╔══════════════════════════════════════════════╗
        ║                                              ║
        ║  from the MS Window command line  (cmd.exe)  ║
        ║                                              ║
        ╚══════════════════════════════════════════════╝


echo   do j=10  by 20  for 4;   say right('hello',j); end   |   regina

output when entering the (above) from the (DOS) command line:

Ring

see "Hello World!" + nl

Output:

Hello World!

RPL

RPL command-line interpreter allows to pass several instructions and values in one line, provided there is no program branch instruction among them. It is nevertheless possible to have a program structure in the line by bracketing it with ≪ ≫, which means "this is an unnamed program". Adding the word EVAL at the end will execute the code, otherwise it would stay at level 1 of the stack.

" World" "Hello" SWAP +

≪ " World" "Hello" SWAP + ≫ EVAL

This less trivial one-liner example calculates S(5), where S(n) is a Machin-like formula :

≪ 0 0 5 FOR k 2 k * 1 + → n ≪ -1 k ^ n / 4 5 n ^ / 239 n ^ INV - * + ≫ NEXT 4 * ≫ EVAL

Output:

3: "Hello world"
2: "Hello world"
1: 3.14159265262

Ruby

From Unix:

$ ruby -e 'puts "Hello"'
Hello

Works with: JRuby

$ jruby -e 'puts "Hello from JRuby"'
Hello from JRuby

Works with: Rubinius

$ rbx -e 'puts "Hello from Rubinius"'
Hello from Rubinius

Run BASIC

print shell$("echo hello world")

Rust

The following code leaves the file rust_out in the current directory (it does not delete it to avoid to call another shell/system dependent command/program). The current directory is not specified by ./ in every system...

$ echo 'fn main(){println!("Hello!")}' | rustc -;./rust_out

S-lang

slsh -e 'print("Hello, World")'

Or, in MSW cmd.exe:

slsh -e "print(\"Hello, World\")"

Note that print() is included w/slsh, but is not part of S-Lang itself.

Scala

Library: Scala

C:\>scala -e "println(\"Hello\")"
Hello

PS C:\> scala -e 'println(\"Hello\")'
Hello

The escaping of quotes is required by Windows. On Unix and shown in the example on Windows PowerShell, one could just use single quotes around the code.

Scheme

Works with: Guile

guile -c '(display "Hello, world!\n")'

sed

The first non-option argument is interpreted as the script.

$ sed q /proc/meminfo

Alternatively, scripts can be passed via the -e option.

$ sed -e 's/[[:space:]]*$//' -e '/./!d' file.txt

Shiny

shiny -e "say 'hi'"

Sidef

% sidef -E "say 'hello'"

Slate

./slate --eval "[inform: 'hello'] ensure: [exit: 0].".

SNOBOL4

Portable version

echo 'a output = "Hello, World!";end' | snobol4 -b

Bash version

snobol4 -b <<<'a output = "Hello, World!";end'

Tcl

This is an area where Tcl is lacking, though when shell one-liners are required a construct like this is typically used:

$ echo 'puts Hello' | tclsh
Hello

TXR

$ echo 123-456-7890 | txr -c '@a-@b-@c' -
a="123"
b="456"
c="7890"

Most useful txr queries consist of multiple lines, and the line structure is important. Multi-liners can be passed via -c easily, but there is no provision in the syntax that would allow multi-liners to be actually written as one physical line. There are opposite provisions for splitting long logical lines into multiple physical lines.

The -e (evaluate) and -p (evaluate and print) options provide shell one-liner access to TXR Lisp:

$ txr -p '(+ 2 2)'
4

$ txr -e '(mkdir "foo" #o777)'
$ ls -ld foo
drwxrwxr-x 2 kaz kaz 4096 Mar  4 23:36 foo

UNIX Shell

Explicit call of the shell, passing the shell command via the -c option:

$ sh -c ls

$ sh -c "echo hello"

To invoke a specific shell like Bash, Korn Shell or Z Shell:

$ bash -c 'paste <(echo 1) <(echo 2)'
$ ksh -c 'let i=3+4; print $i'
$ zsh -c 'if [[ 5 -lt 6 ]] { echo ok };'

Shell scripts almost never use sh -c, because there are various implicit ways whereby the shell command language evaluates a command in a subshell:

$ VAR=`echo hello`   # obsolescent backtick notation
$ VAR=$(echo hello)  # modern POSIX notation
$ (echo hello)       # execute in another shell process, not in this one

There are more details about `echo hello` and $(echo hello) at Execute a system command#UNIX Shell.

C Shell

Run a C shell command from any shell:

$ csh -fc 'if (5 < 6) echo ok'

es

Run a command, in extensible shell, from any shell:

$ es -c 'if {test 5 -lt 6} {echo ok}'

Ursala

The command to execute the Ursala compiler is fun. An expression supplied as a parameter to the --main option is compiled and evaluated. If the expression evaluates to a list of character strings, it can be displayed on standard output with --show. If it's some other type, it can be formatted for display by --cast <type expression>,

$ fun --main=-[hello]- --show
hello
$ fun --main="power/2 32" --cast %n
4294967296
$ fun --m="..mp2str mpfr..pi 120" --c %s
'3.1415926535897932384626433832795028847E+00'

Vedit macro language

The following DOS command starts Vedit and displays a message. When the user presses any key, Vedit exits.

vpw -c'Get_Key("Hello!") exit'

Wart

echo "prn 34" |wart

Wren

echo 'System.print("Hello from Wren!")' > tmp.wren; wren tmp.wren

Output:

Hello from Wren!

zkl

With a unix like shell, just pipe the program into the REPL. Kinda greasy and noisy. To shut it up, send stdout to /dev/null

echo 'println("Hello World ",5+6)' | zkl

Output:

zkl 1.12.9, released 2014-05-01
Hello World 11
Hello World 11