What does this case of Bash output redir mean?

[vesselinpeev]

Hello,

I am pondering upon

> file2 < file1 cat

The command executes &quot;cat&quot; on file1 and redirects
the standard output to file2.

This is another way of writing
&quot;cat file1 > file2&quot;

Can someone fully explain why the first version works at all? No explanation in Bash manuals.

It is the second version reversed with > at the start.

So the standard output is redirected to file2, but as the input to file2 we get &quot;file1 cat&quot;. Why the need for > ?

Thank you in advance for your help.