Because I feel the other answers, though correct, are entirely missing out on clarity: The first iteration looks like this: <file head -n10 | grep foo | tr ba

Because I feel the other answers, though correct, are entirely missing out on clarity: The first iteration looks like this: <file head -n10 | grep foo | tr baz qux The second iteration looks like this: <file gzcat | head -n10 | grep foo | tr baz qux It makes the change much easier, since the first thing written is the first thing that happens. In `gzcat < file`, the logical first step - reading and streaming file - is now the physical second step. Like a German sentence, whenever you want to prepend the file, you have to maintain an item in second position.