On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 12:49:25PM -0700, Linda Walsh wrote: > Greg Wooledge wrote: > >A simple example: > > > >diff -u <(sort file1) <(sort file2) > ---- > You claim <(sort file1) is a filename?
$ ls -l <(sort .bashrc) lr-x------ 1 wooledg wooledg 64 Oct 19 15:56 /dev/fd/63 -> pipe:[55954] ls thinks it is. The whole point of this construction is that it generates a thing that can be open()ed by a program that isn't bash. So you can drop it into programs that require a filename argument, like diff. Nobody ever said it's a regular file.
