Trouble executing nanotts via Node.js child_process.exec

[clickworkorange]

Trying to talk to nanotts from Node.JS i get an error regardless of how I format the command string:

exec("nanotts -c -i \"hello\"", function (err, stdout, stderr) {
...
});
Error: Command failed: nanotts -c -i "hello"
 **error: multiple inputs

exec("nanotts -c -i hello", function (err, stdout, stderr) {
...
});
Error: Command failed: nanotts -c -i hello
 **error: multiple inputs

exec("nanotts -c hello", function (err, stdout, stderr) {
...
});
Error: Command failed: nanotts -c hello
 **error: trailing commandline arguments

exec("nanotts hello", function (err, stdout, stderr) {
...
});
Error: Command failed: nanotts hello
 **error: trailing commandline arguments

exec("nanotts -i \"hello\" -c", function (err, stdout, stderr) {
...
});
Error: Command failed: nanotts hello
 **error: trailing commandline arguments

exec("nanotts -i 'hello' -c", function (err, stdout, stderr) {
...
});
Error: Command failed: nanotts -i 'hello' -c
 **error: multiple inputs

How should I format my command line to avoid this?

[clickworkorange]

I tried using Node.JS's execFile() method instead, with the arguments supplied as an array:

execFile("nanotts",[
        "-p", 
        "-v", "en-GB", 
        "--pitch", 1, 
        "--speed", 1, 
        "Hello world"
    ], function (err, stdout, stderr) {
...
});
Error: Command failed: nanotts -p -v en-GB --pitch 1 --speed 1 Hello world
 **error: trailing commandline arguments

I also tried with an explicit input argument and quoted string:

execFile("nanotts",[
        "-p", 
        "-v", "en-GB", 
        "--pitch", 1, 
        "--speed", 1, 
        "-i", "\"Hello world\""
    ], function (err, stdout, stderr) {
...
});
Error: Command failed: nanotts -p -v en-GB --pitch 1 --speed 1 -i "Hello world"
 **error: multiple inputs

[clickworkorange]

Curiously, I can get it to work by commenting out the in_mode check at line 609-612 in main.cpp ...

nanotts/src/main.cpp

Lines 609 to 612 in e856ec3

	if ( in_mode != IN_NOT_SET && in_mode != IN_CMDLINE_TRAILING ) {
	fprintf( stderr, " **error: trailing commandline arguments\n\n" );
	return -4;
	}

... and using the syntax in my first execFile() example ...

execFile("nanotts",[
        "-p", 
        "-v", "en-GB", 
        "--pitch", 1, 
        "--speed", 1, 
        "Hello world"
    ], function (err, stdout, stderr) {
...
});
read: 12 bytes from command line
using lang: en-GB
speed: 1.00
pitch: 1.00

[gmn]

Hi, The program execution statements you posted work for me on the command-line. It would help me to know what you are trying to do. Are you trying to generate a WAV file, or playback? There are no web-friendly builtins at the moment. Nanotts does require you to specify which way you would like it to produce output. There isn't a default. Perhaps there should be. I don't remember precisely what my reasoning was for designing it this way.

[gmn]

I'm sorry, reading closer, I see you are running node.js, not in a web browser. I'll try to repro this and get to the bottom of it. Citing lines 609-612 gets pretty close to the heart of it I think. You can safely leave those lines commented out in your copy to run in the mean-time. I'll post any findings here. Luckily, I'm fairly familiar with Node. :)

[gmn]

Oh, one thing I see right off the bat is that if you doexecFile( nanotts , [ "-p", "-v", "en-GB", "--pitch", 1, "--speed", 1, "Hello world"

What will be sent to the command line will be nanotts -p -v en-GB --pitch 1 --speed 1 Hello world

The last phrase needs to be quoted. You could put an escape in like this: execFile(nanotts",[ "-p", "-v", "en-GB", "--pitch", 1, "--speed", 1, "Hello\ world"

Also, the '"' after nanotts looks suspicious.

Best....g

[clickworkorange]

Hey there :) Many thanks for the swift response!

The last phrase needs to be quoted. You could put an escape in like this: execFile(nanotts",[ "-p", "-v", "en-GB", "--pitch", 1, "--speed", 1, "Hello\ world"

Yes, however if I do quote the string I still get the "trailing commandline arguments" error, unless I comment out lines 609-612:

execFile("nanotts",[
        "-p", 
        "-v", "en-GB", 
        "--pitch", 1, 
        "--speed", 1, 
        "\"Hello\ world\""
    ], function (err, stdout, stderr) {
...
});
Error: Command failed: nanotts -p -v en-GB --pitch 1 --speed 1 "Hello world"
 **error: trailing commandline arguments

And if I make the input explicit with the -i flag, I get (as before):

execFile("nanotts",[
        "-p", 
        "-v", "en-GB", 
        "--pitch", 1, 
        "--speed", 1, 
        "-i", "\"Hello\ world\""
    ], function (err, stdout, stderr) {
...
});
Error: Command failed: nanotts -p -v en-GB --pitch 1 --speed 1 -i "Hello world"
 **error: multiple inputs

But I think you're on to something wrt quotes and escaping; I see in the error message that the command has been called with the "Hello world" string without the escaped space - I would have expected this to be "Hello\ world" instead. Perhaps Node.JS does something to "unescape" the string? Would this cause the "multiple inputs" error? Or has the escape character merely been dropped from the error message?

Also, the '"' after nanotts looks suspicious.

Ooops. That was just a typo in my posts - fixed now.

[clickworkorange]

I've looked at how @luisivan does it in his Node.JS wrapper for pico2wave

https://github.com/luisivan/node-picotts/blob/8c6b183b884890c8e9422f93036b374942398c8b/index.js

Seems no different to my code when it comes to quoting/escaping the message string. I also found this post on StackOverflow:

But actually... node.js will escape all needed characters for you

That would make a lot of sense, but doesn't explain why I'm having issues...

[clickworkorange]

In case you're wondering, this is what I'm working on: https://github.com/clickworkorange/node-red-contrib-nano-tts

[clickworkorange]

Still stuck on this - any help much appreciated!

myString = "Einmal Bier bitte";
execFile("nanotts",[
        "-p", 
        "-v", "de-DE", 
        "--pitch", 0.5, 
        "--speed", 0.8, 
        "--volume", 0.5, 
        "-i", "\"" + myString.replace(/\s/g, "\\ ") + "\""
    ], function (err, stdout, stderr) {
    ...
    }
);

Error: Command failed: nanotts -p -v de-DE --pitch 0.5 --speed 0.8 --volume 0.5 -i "Einmal\ Bier\ bitte"
 **error: multiple inputs

[gmn]

Ok, I'm back. I got it to work by doing this. Give it a try. Ymmv, we'll see I guess.

const execFile = require('child_process').execFile;
myString = "Einmal Bier bitte";

var myargs = [ "-w",
        "-v", "de-DE",
        "--pitch", 0.5,
        "--speed", 0.8,
        "--volume", 0.5,
        "-i", "\"Hello World\"" ]

console.log(myargs)
console.log(myargs.join(' '))

execFile( "./nanotts " + myargs.join(" "),[],
    function (err, stdout, stderr) {
        console.log( "got to execution callback" );
        console.log('stdout ' +stdout);
        console.log('stderr ' + stderr);
    }
);

Note: this writes a WAV, not playback. Changing to a -p should work though.

[clickworkorange]

Hi there! Many thanks for your reply - I know this is a pain, but it is for the greater good :) I've tried joining the arguments into a string, and concatenating this with the command, but unfortunately the execFile method expects the arguments to be supplied as an array, and fails with ENOENT if called this way:

Error: spawn nanotts -p -v es-ES --pitch 1.1 --speed 1.1 --volume 0.8 -i "una cerveza por favor" ENOENT

There is the plain exec Node.JS function, which does take the executable name and its arguments as a single string - however this fails with the all too familiar **error: multiple inputs:

Error: Command failed: nanotts -p -v es-ES --pitch 1.1 --speed 1.1 --volume 0.8 -i "una cerveza por favor"
 **error: multiple inputs

In both cases a copy/paste of the command as listed in the error messages executes without issue. I remain convinced that this is caused by some oddity in how nanotts parses the command line arguments - coupled with how Node.JS passes them on to it - though despite plenty of searching on the web, and plenty of staring at the relevant bits in your main.cpp, I have been unable to figure out what that oddity is. There seems to be rather a lot of code to do with argument parsing, but that's probably just becuase I'm looking at it with untrained eyes!

[rogueadmin]

This doesn't work when a tty doesn't exist, so if running from a web server or cron job won't work.

I commented out this line in main.cpp line 475

if ( ! isatty(fileno(stdin)) ) {
    in_mode = IN_STDIN;
}

[clickworkorange]

I commented out this line in main.cpp line 475

So how can we turn this into a proper fix?