linux man page for sponge

sponge(1)                                                                                                                                sponge(1)

NAME
       sponge - soak up standard input and write to a file

SYNOPSIS
       sed '...' file | grep '...' | sponge 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 opening
       the output file. This allows constructing pipelines that read from and write to the same file.

       It also creates the output file atomically by renaming a temp file into place, and preserves the permissions of the output file if  it  al-
       ready exists.  If the output file is a special file or symlink, the data will be written to it.

       If no output file is specified, sponge outputs to stdout.

AUTHOR
       Colin Watson and Tollef Fog Heen

                                                                    2006-02-19                                                           sponge(1)