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.TH sponge 1 2006-02-19 moreutils moreutils
.SH NAME
sponge \- soak up standard input and write to a file
.SH SYNOPSIS
'nh
.fi
.ad l
\fBsed '...' file | grep '...' | sponge [-a] file\fR \kx
.if (\nx>(\n(.l/2)) .nr x (\n(.l/5)
'in \n(.iu+\nxu
'in \n(.iu-\nxu
.ad b
'hy
.SH DESCRIPTION
\fBsponge\fR reads standard input and
writes it out to the specified file. Unlike a shell
redirect, \fBsponge\fR soaks up all its input before
writing the output file. This allows constructing
pipelines that read from and write to
the same file.
.PP
\fBsponge\fR preserves the
permissions of the output file
if it already exists.
.PP
When possible, \fBsponge\fR 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.)
.PP
If the output file is a special file or symlink,
the data will be written to it, non-atomically.
.PP
If no file is specified, \fBsponge\fR outputs to
stdout.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP 
\*(T<\fB\-a\fR\*(T>
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.
.SH AUTHOR
Colin Watson and Tollef Fog Heen