Can you clean up temporary files before they are used in shell?

This is tested in csh, tcsh, sh, ksh, zsh, bash, ash, sash:

echo foo > the-file
(rm the-file; cat) < the-file | do_slow_processing

or if you prefer:

(rm the-file; do_slow_processing) < the-file

Interestingly, it also works for fifos:

mkfifo the-fifo
(rm the-fifo; cat) < the-fifo | do_slow_processing &
echo foo > the-fifo

This is because the reader is blocked until something is written.

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