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sponge: n. [Unix] A special case of a filter that reads
its entire input before writing any output; the canonical example is a sort
utility. Unlike most filters, a sponge can conveniently overwrite the
input file with the output data stream. If a file system has versioning
(as ITS did and VMS does now) the sponge/filter distinction loses its
usefulness, because directing filter output would just write a new version.
See also slurp.
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