On 01/07/15 22:48, Stephane Chazelas wrote: > 2015-07-01 22:19:10 +0300, Ilya Basin: >> Hi list. >> >> Want to read whole stdin into variable. >> Don't want to spawn new processes (cat). > [...] > > Note that > > $(<file) does spawn a new process, it's just that bash doesn't > execute /bin/cat in that process, it does the reading (from > file) and writing (to the pipe) by itself (and the parent reads > from the other end of the pipe to make-up the substitution). > > ksh (ksh93 and mksh) and zsh do not spawn a process in the > $(<file) case.
For completeness dash ignores this format so it's quite non portable
