How to read from the console? - Linux

I have a scenario where I am printing something from an application to the linux CLI. I have another application that will be reading that 开发者_StackOverflowvalue from the command line. Is there a linux command that I can execute that will read a line from the console? I am using a java application to write to the console and a asterisk box reading from the console. Thanks

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Use piping, e.g:

cat foo.txt | wc -l

This allows you to redirect one process output to another process input.