On Tue, Mar 17, 2015 at 11:40 AM, Ed Avis <e...@waniasset.com> wrote: > In bash, the empty command can be redirected to a file: > > % >out > > It will create or overwrite 'out' as the empty file. That may be useful. > But somehow you can also say > > % whoami | >out
This isn't surprising or deserving of a special case treatment. It's a valid permutation that I would expect to work as required. This isn't even close to the most likely way one might screw up a redirect. Forgetting a quote or escape in a non-obvious place such as within an assignment or argument to a command is far more likely to bite you. Examples: var=foo>out let x>5\?y:z If you're worried about making a mistake, enable the noclobber option in your bashrc. -- Dan Douglas
