BASH: How to process files listed in text file?

[drmrgd]

< is better because it is a standard functionality of shell and doesn't require spawning yet another process.
similar case is with touch - people create empty files with touch because they don't know they can use builtin > file for that (with nothing before >).

</snip>

People means me. I had no idea that was possible (and more proper - if you want to say that). Thanks for the tip!

[JKyleOKC]

< is better because it is a standard functionality of shell and doesn't require spawning yet another process.
similar case is with touch - people create empty files with touch because they don't know they can use builtin > file for that (with nothing before >).

Besides, while it doesn't make much difference here, there is plenty of difference between standard functionality that is intended for its purpose and pretty much foolproof, and handmade fugly hacks full of caveats, eg widespread use of for f in `ls` instead of for f in *

Great points. In addition, for the specific situation at hand, using input redirection will route the data through a FIFO behind the scenes while using "cat" will copy the entire file into RAM thus using much more in the way of resources. If the file in question is only a few K bytes that's no big deal, but if it's a couple of hundred GB then it makes the difference between running at all or crashing spectacularly...