How to do <cmd> file | hold file

[Joe Smith]

In article <2274 at ns-mx.uiowa.edu> jlhaferman at l_cae07.icaen.uiowa.edu (Jeffrey Lawrence Haferman) writes:
>For example, suppose I want to sort a file and place the result in the same
>file without destroying it, e.g.
>   % sort file > tmp; mv tmp file

You can use "sort file -o file" for that particular problem.  (It's in the
man pages.)

In general, you have to find a suitable location to hold the file, then
mv it to the destination.  Buffering the entire file in RAM does not work
for large files.
-- 
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