Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 3 - STEP BY STEP GUIDE Manual page 49

Chapter 3. Shell Prompt Basics 35
Figure 3-8. Stringing Commands and Comparing Files
3.8.3. Redirecting Standard Input
Not only can you redirect standard output, you can perform the same type of redirection with standard
input.
When you use the redirect standard input symbol , you are telling the shell that you want a file to be

read as input for a command.
Use a file you have already created to demonstrate this idea. Type:
cat sneakers.txt

Because you used the less-than symbol ( ) to separate the command from the file, the output of
cat

was read by .
sneakers.txt cat
Figure 3-9. Redirecting Standard Input