sponge

A special case of a Unix 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 file 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.

[Jargon File]

(1995-01-18)