Pipe into `adb shell`

Question

Why can I not pipe into adb shell?

[klm@kth ~]$ echo foo | adb shell cat
^C

The above command hangs on my 4.0.1 emulator, and I\'m

Answer 1

An alternate option may be to use adb port forwarding and netcat.

Set Android side to recieve:

busybox nc -lp 5555 > piped_file.txt

PC side, set forwarding and send:

adb forward tcp:4444 tcp:5555 # Anything sent to localhost 4444 will be forwarded to Android 5555
cat piped_file.txt | busybox nc localhost 4444 # Pipe through the port to Android

The PC netcat connects to the Android netcat through the forwarded port, and the piped_file.txt is delivered.

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Additional Info
Combined with tar, you can copy entire directory structures onto your device.

busybox nc -lp 5555 | tar -x # Android side

adb forward tcp:4444 tcp:5555 # PC side
tar -c directory | busybox nc localhost 4444