Example:

ls | echo prints nothing ( a blank line, actually ). I'd expect it to print a list of files.

ls | grep 'foo', on the other hand, works as expected ( prints files with 'foo' in their name ).

What is do in these situations is something like: ls | while read OUT; do echo $OUT; done but this is rather cumbersome.

Why does piping work with some commands, but not with others ? How can I circumvent this issue ?

Example:

ls | echo prints nothing ( a blank line, actually ). I'd expect it to print a list of files.

ls | grep 'foo', on the other hand, works as expected ( prints files with 'foo' in their name ).

What I do in these situations is something like: ls | while read OUT; do echo $OUT; done but this is rather cumbersome.

Why does piping work with some commands, but not with others ? How can I circumvent this issue ?

Example:

ls | echo prints nothing ( a blank line, actually ). I'd expect it to print a list of files.

ls | grep 'foo', on the other hand, works as expected.

What is do in these situations is something like: ls | while read OUT; do echo $OUT; done but this is rather cumbersome.

Why does piping work with some commands, but not with others ? How can I circumvent this issue ?

Example:

ls | echo prints nothing ( a blank line, actually ). I'd expect it to print a list of files.

ls | grep 'foo', on the other hand, works as expected ( prints files with 'foo' in their name ).

What is do in these situations is something like: ls | while read OUT; do echo $OUT; done but this is rather cumbersome.

Why does piping work with some commands, but not with others ? How can I circumvent this issue ?