Can output handle shell functionality like operators or redirects?

[sadamczyk-eos]

I'm trying to handle changes between light/dark mode smoothly, and therefore need to detect which "mode" the device is currently in. I've already got it working on GNOME, but the MacOS command returns an exit code of 1 and dumps output onto stderr as well, if light mode is currently active, and returns a string for dark mode only.

That's why I'm trying to do something like this to avoid the error:

{{- if eq "Dark" (output "defaults" "read" "-g" "AppleInterfaceStyle" "||" "true" | trim) -}}
# dark mode stuff
{{- else -}}
# light mode stuff
{{- end -}}

But this doesn't work because the || are probably just interpreted as additional arguments passed to defaults, instead of the shell operator.
Is there any way to do this, or am I forced to make a shell script for this? I'd like to avoid creating an additional shell script for something so small, and also it means I need to ensure that the shell script exists on the machine before the templates are processed, which also always feels like a bit of a hassle.

[halostatue]

You would need to do something like (output "bash" "-c" "'defaults read -g AppleInterfaceStyle || true'" | trim).

[sadamczyk-eos]

Ah, of course! I didn't think of that for some reason, thanks a lot!
The single quotes aren't needed btw, they cause an error: chezmoi: unknown shorthand flag: 'g' in -g
But just the double quotes work perfectly, as the whole thing gets passed as a string like on the command line.

My final if statement looks like this now:

{{- if eq "Dark" (output "sh" "-c" "defaults read -g AppleInterfaceStyle 2>/dev/null || true" | trim) -}}