SPONGE(1) moreutils SPONGE(1)
NAME
sponge - soak up standard input and write to a file
SYNOPSIS
sed '...' file | grep '...' | sponge [-a] file
DESCRIPTION
sponge reads standard input and writes it out to the specified file.
Unlike a shell redirect, sponge soaks up all its input before writing
the output file. This allows constructing pipelines that read from and
write to the same file.
sponge preserves the permissions of the output file if it already
exists.
When possible, sponge creates or updates the output file atomically by
renaming a temp file into place. (This cannot be done if TMPDIR is not
in the same filesystem.)
If the output file is a special file or symlink, the data will be
written to it, non-atomically.
If no file is specified, sponge outputs to stdout.
OPTIONS
-a
Replace the file with a new file that contains the file's original
content, with the standard input appended to it. This is done
atomically when possible.
AUTHOR
Colin Watson and Tollef Fog Heen
moreutils 2006-02-19 SPONGE(1)
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