> I think it's really a bug that tools like gzip, grep, awk etc work on files at all. I'd say that is somewhat of a harsh premise, especially since the in-plac

> I think it's really a bug that tools like gzip, grep, awk etc work on files at all. I'd say that is somewhat of a harsh premise, especially since the in-place editing of files available e.g. in many GNU tools (awk, sed, sort) is really useful and based on exactly that possibility. I do agree that cat often makes pipes easier to read, though. And yes, obsessing over that one additional process seems to be somewhat silly. Unless, of course, it introduces a real bottleneck and the whole thing is time sensitive.