diff --git a/lib/tasks/whitespace.rake b/lib/tasks/whitespace.rake
index 7af099dd6..66e2b056c 100644
--- a/lib/tasks/whitespace.rake
+++ b/lib/tasks/whitespace.rake
@@ -2,19 +2,19 @@ namespace :whitespace do
   desc 'Removes trailing whitespace'
   task :cleanup do
     sh %{for f in `find . -type f | grep -v -e '.git/' -e 'public/' -e '.png'`;
-          do cat $f | sed 's/[ \t]*$//' > tmp; cp tmp $f; rm tmp; echo -n .;
+          do sed -i 's/[ \t]*$//' $f; echo -n .;
         done}
   end
   desc 'Converts hard-tabs into two-space soft-tabs'
   task :retab do
     sh %{for f in `find . -type f | grep -v -e '.git/' -e 'public/' -e '.png'`;
-          do cat $f | sed 's/\t/  /g' > tmp; cp tmp $f; rm tmp; echo -n .;
+          do sed -i 's/\t/  /g' $f; echo -n .;
         done}
   end
   desc 'Remove consecutive blank lines'
   task :scrub_gratuitous_newlines do
     sh %{for f in `find . -type f | grep -v -e '.git/' -e 'public/' -e '.png'`;
-          do cat $f | sed '/./,/^$/!d' > tmp; cp tmp $f; rm tmp; echo -n .;
+          do sed -i '/./,/^$/!d' $f; echo -n .;
         done}
   end
 end