In bash, that's referred to as process substitution[1]; the syntax is only slightly different: <(command) Edit to add: both ksh and zsh support process su

In bash, that's referred to as process substitution[1]; the syntax is only slightly different: <(command) Edit to add: both ksh and zsh support process substitution, too: ksh: <(command) zsh: either =(command) -- uses a temporary file or <(command) -- uses a named pipe [1]: http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/process-sub.html http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/process-sub.html