Re: access the stdin of the parent process in a pipeline

[Mike Jonkmans]

Apart from the redirection as part of a function declaration,
you can also use compund commands, as Chet already mentioned.
One hardly see these constructs in system scripts.
Though they are properly documented in the bash manual.

Sometimes a 'subshell function' may be useful :

        f() ( ... )

E.g. when 'cd's are done in the body, the working directory gets restored.

If you want to abbreviate a long construct, these can be used:

        f() [[ ... ]]
        f() (( ... ))

And even:
        
        f() for ... done 
        f() if ... fi
        etc.

Regards, Mike