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If I have noclobber set in my interactive shell (set -o noclobber), I noticed process substitution doesn't work:

# echo hello > >(cat) -bash: /dev/fd/62: cannot overwrite existing file

If I turn off noclobber permanently (set +o noclobber) it works fine:

# echo hello > >(cat) hello

I tried overriding noclobber with >| like this:

echo hello > >|(cat) -bash: syntax error near unexpected token `>|'

Is there a way to disable noclobber temporarily?

UPDATE: actually, it seems unreasonable for noclobber to take effect when the output goes to process substitution, because there is no file that would be "clobbered". It seems like it would be a good and safe to always use the >| and 2>| overrides to noclobber to prevent "cannot overwrite existing file" errors in case noclobber is inadvertently turned on.

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  • This may seem obvious, but I was confused by it today and couldn't find a solution online, so I'm creating this question and answer for anyone who might have tripped into the same hole. Commented Nov 29, 2019 at 20:09

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Override noclobber in the same way done for files using >|:

# echo hello >| >(cat) hello

The >| must be with the redirection symbol (>), not as part of the process substitution (>(…)).

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