From: Collin Funk
Subject: bug#80010: timeout echo vs. timeout cat
Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2025 19:08:28 -0800
>...
>In the terminal window with 'strace' running, we can see that 'timeout'
>isn't invoked until after "pipe" is opened after being unblocked:
> $ strace -p 1483195
> strace: Process 1483195 attached
> openat(AT_FDCWD, "pipe", O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC, 0666) = 3
> dup2(3, 1) = 1
> close(3) = 0
> execve("/home/collin/.local/bin/timeout", ["timeout", "1", "echo", "foo"],
>0x561e21977ae0 /* 86 vars */) = 0
>I agree that this behavior isn't obvious. :)
Good explanation, but, for completeness, it would have been nice to
finish by providing OP with the (well, "a") workaround, which is to
invoke a shell as the process controlled by "timeout". Something like
(untested):
$ timeout sh -c 'echo foo > pipe'
This sort of thing is a common enough idiom in Unix/Linux scripting.
When passing command lines to programs that invoke programs, you often
have to invoke a shell along the way in order to get the desired
semantics. (O/T) This is also the case in Windows, where you
frequently have to do something like "cmd /c ..." in order for it to
work as expected.
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