I find cat file | grep foo simpler because it reads Left to Right. Tyler On Fri, Dec 4, 2020 at 1:34 PM Andy Kosela wrote: > On 12/4/20, arnold@skeeve.com wrote: > > Dan Cross wrote: > > > >> This has always struck me as particularly elegant in scripts. Consider: > >> > >> cat "$@" | whatever > >> > >> (Or you may prefer `cat $* | whatever`) > >> > >> Now one's script can take any number of file arguments or stdin, even if > >> the filter does not. > > > > I think Dan has hit the heart of the matter. People are used to using > > cat for multiple files to start pumping data down a pipeline, so they > > continue to do so even when there's only one file. > > > > The classic example is: > > $ cat file | grep foo > > instead of the simpler: > > $ grep foo file > > It appears cat(1) and pipe(7) are deeply ingrained in people's brains. > > --Andy >