hello everyone, I wrote a simple "inplace" script to be able to work with commands that have no -i options. The simplest way to do it (I thought) was #!/bin/sh set -eux < "$@" | sponge "$1" so inplace counter awk '{$0+=2}1' would be expanded as < 'counter' 'awk' '{$0+=2}1' | sponge 'counter' but there is an error message ./inplace: 3: cannot open counter awk {$0+=2}1: No such file so it seems that the expansion leads to < 'counter awk {$0+=2}1' | sponge 'counter' is this an expected behavior? regards -- Marc Chantreux Pôle CESAR (Calcul et services avancés à la recherche) Université de Strasbourg 14 rue René Descartes, BP 80010, 67084 STRASBOURG CEDEX 03.68.85.60.79