> cat > hello.py << EOF > print "Hello, world!" > EOF > python hello.py Hello, world! > more hello.py print "Hello, world!" > |
How does this work? According to the man page for cat, if
file is a single dash (`-') or absent, cat reads from the standard input.The ">" redirects to a file as usual.
The "<<" is special. The whole construct is called a "here document." I found more about it including its proper name here, which leads to a wikipedia entry.
Note that any symbol not present by itself on a line in the desired text will work for termination. Here's a rather silly sequence in which it took me a while to enter the single character 'X' to stop input:
> cat > x.txt << X > x > cat > x.txt << XY > cat > x.txt << XYZ > print me > XYZ > cat > x.txt << X > hi > X > more x.txt x cat > x.txt << XY cat > x.txt << XYZ print me XYZ cat > x.txt << X hi > |
Quick Unix: a brief look at Unix stuff that I find interesting and not too obvious.
