What is the name of the less-than symbol mysql uses to ingest sql files?

Question

When I want mysql to run a sql file, I use a command like this:

mysql -uroot -prootpass dbname < dump.sql

What is the name of the operator that is the less-than sign in this operation?

Answer 1

This is called a redirection operator

You can read up in your shell's manfile as well: man bash (for instance) reads

Before a command is executed, its input and output may be redirected using a special notation interpreted by the shell. [...] Redirection of input causes the file whose name results from the expansion of word to be opened for reading on file descriptor n, or the standard input (file descriptor 0) if n is not specified.