wp-cli table output to a variable -> wlack webhook

Question

I am trying to send the output of a wp-cli command to a slack webhook. WP-cli outputs tables with, in this case, plugin updates.

The command for this is: $ wp plugin update --all --dry-run --format=table

The normal output is:

+-----------------------------------------+----------------+---------+----------------+
| name                                    | status         | version | update_version |
+-----------------------------------------+----------------+---------+----------------+
| aryo-activity-log                       | active-network | 2.6.1   | 2.7.0          |
| autoptimize                             | inactive       | 2.8.3   | 2.8.4          |
+-----------------------------------------+----------------+---------+----------------+

But, when I put the table output into a variable, and echo the variable, all table markup has been stripped: Available plugin updates: name status version update_version aryo-activity-log active-network 2.6.1 2.7.0 autoptimize inactive 2.8.3 2.8.4

The complete script is:

#!/bin/bash
updatesplugins=$(wp plugin update --all --dry-run --format=table)
echo $updatesplugins;

I am stuck at this point. Why does bash strip all these -, + and | characters? And how to keep this in its original state zo I can send the table/variable to, in this case, a slack webhook?

Answer 1

You can try redirecting the output to a text file instead of a variable. A variable usually stores data in a single line. Try something like this -

$(wp plugin update --all --dry-run --format=table) > updatesplugins.txt
cat updatesplugins.txt # or use it in some other command