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INSITU(1)		    General Commands Manual		     INSITU(1)



NAME
       insitu - modify files in place with shell commands

SYNOPSIS
       insitu [-t] file command

DESCRIPTION
       A  shell	 pipeline  cannot  both	 read  and write to the same file; for
       example

	 cat foo | grep bar > foo

       will merely delete the contents of foo.

       Insitu wraps  a	shell  command,	 connecting  its  standard  input  and
       standard	 output	 to  the  file.	 If command finishes successfully, the
       file will be truncated (or extended) to the size of the output produced
       by  the	command.   If command returns a non-zero exit status, the file
       will not be truncated (unless -t is passed),  but  contain  the	output
       read  from the command, followed by the rest of the original file.  The
       part of the file overwritten by the command output will be lost.

       Insitu runs the command with '$SHELL -c command', substituting  /bin/sh
       for $SHELL if the latter is not set.

   Options
       -t     truncate file even if command returns a non-zero exit status.

EXIT STATUS
       insitu  returns	the  exit  status  of  command.	  Additionally, 128 is
       returned if invalid flags are passed, 129 if file cannot	 be  accessed,
       and 130 if the child process for running command cannot be started.

BUGS
       Insitu  is  a  dangerous	 and  brittle  tool that can easily cause data
       corruption if  the  command  fails  halfway  through.   Make  sure  you
       understand this risk before running it on important files.

SEE ALSO
       cp(1),mv(1),sh(1)



				  insitu-1.0			     INSITU(1)
SIGKILL -9
