mjhjmtu

Using tmux to send commands along from one terminal to another, I realize that

$ tmux send -t mySession "text" ENTER

correctly sends text, but

$ tmux send -t mySession "up" ENTER

sends text again, probably because up is interpreted not as text, but as keyworded key up arrow.

Similarly,

$ tmux send -t mySession "3" ENTER

correctly sends 3, but

$ tmux send -t mySession "-3" ENTER
tmux: unknown option -- 3
usage: send-keys [-lRM] [-t target-pane] key

fails with this error message, and this naive try to escape

$ tmux send -t mySession "-3" ENTER

sends 3 again, not the expected -3.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that I've missed something about the way tmux interprets and understand its argument. What am I missing here?

How do I ensure that mytmuxcommand "<text>" ENTER will always be interpreted as "send actual <text> then send ENTER key"?

To send a string literally you can use the -l option to send-keys, but as you might still have more options after the -l you need to use something like '' (an empty string) to no longer be looking for options beginning -.

You cannot mix and match the literal with keynames like Enter, so finally you need to give two commands, eg:

tmux send-keys -t session -l '' -3 ; send-keys -t session Enter