The one I typed is unlikely (I wrote it in response to your "Anything after the `cat file |` can't overwrite the file", which is factually incorrect as demonstrated), but there are plenty of other simple mistakes. Understand what you're running, and keep backups, otherwise you'll screw up eventually. Selecting your tools this way doesn't move the needle much.

Removing cat and specifying the file directly to the utility doesn't move the needle in any tangible way either.

At the end of the day do whatever pattern works for you - for me it's doing "cat file |" at the start of a pipeline and "> outfile" at the end.

I also avoid globbing inside a pipeline as it can be dangerous too.

You can replace "cat file |" with "<file".

Well, yes, but then it wouldn't have been a very good demonstration of why the statement "anything after the `cat file |` can't overwrite the file" is incorrect.