docker-compose use pipe in command

Question

I am having trouble running the following in docker-compose (1.7 build 0d7bf73 , compose file format version 1) which works fine from command line (docker 1.10.3):

docker run --rm --entrypoint="/bin/bash" node:4 -c "node gridd.js -t | ./node_modules/bunyan/bin/bunyan"

My docker compose:

grid:
  image: node:4-slim
  entrypoint: /bin/bash
  command: -c "node gridd.js -t | ./node_modules/bunyan/bin/bunyan"

Using this docker-compose file results in

marcel@client ~/grid $ docker-compose -f ../docker-compose-test.yml -p test up
Removing test_grid_1
Recreating 4e0104efc149_4e0104efc149_4e0104efc149_test_grid_1

ERROR: for grid  Container command not found or does not exist.
Attaching to

I also tried using the exec method, docker-compose command as list with the same results

Answer 1

In 2021, with docker-compose v2.0.0-beta.6:

Behaviour of the command field is surprising, if | or && are involved.

Expected

I can freely use piping and && in the commands; they would be poured to bash -c.

I think this is the Docker normal; there behaviour of command field is different between providing it as a string vs. as an array.

Actual

The command seems simply to get cut at | or &&, and the tail ignored!!!

What's bad is that there's no error about this. Also, did not find any documentation telling how exactly the command contents are used (in Docker, there is such documentation).

---

Experimentation (below) shows that if I start the command with bash -c explicitly, I can use | and && in the commands.

Note: Behaviour is the same with syntax version 3.9 (latest).

version: '3.0'

services:
  abc:
    image: debian:latest
    #command: 'echo a | grep -v a'   # a (wrong)
    #command: 'echo a | grep x'      # a (wrong)
    #
    #command: bash -c 'echo a | grep -v a'   # (empty) 👍
    #command: bash -c 'echo a | grep a'   # a 👍
    command: bash -c 'echo a && false'   # (exits with code 1) 👍

To test:

• paste the above to docker-compose.yml
• docker compose up

Note: With slightly longer commands, one ends up doing quote escape trickery if the full command is also quoted. Thus, I left bash -c without quotes.