On Thursday 21 November 2024 02:16:48 pm Greg Wooledge wrote: > On Thu, Nov 21, 2024 at 19:55:04 +0100, to...@tuxteam.de wrote: > > On Thu, Nov 21, 2024 at 06:44:37PM +0000, Darac Marjal wrote: > > > > [...] > > > > > If it helps, "sponge" (in the moreutils package) seems to offer the right > > > interface here: > > > > [...] > > > > Oh, wow -- thanks for that little gem! > > For the record, sponge -a doesn't actually append to the original > file. As the man page says, > > -a > > 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. > > > hobbit:~$ ls -li y > 847514 -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 8 Nov 21 07:18 y > hobbit:~$ echo quux | sponge -a y > hobbit:~$ ls -li y > 6684744 -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 13 Nov 21 14:11 y > > The inode number changed, because it's a new file. This may be desirable > or not -- it all depends on your needs. If the file in question is a log > file that some program may still be writing to, then this is absolutely > NOT desirable. Why would you want to append to a file that some other program is also writing to? Sounds messy...
-- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin
