Hullo,
Responses inline.
--- tuxdna <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> :(){ :|:& };:
>
> : is a Bash Shell's no-op ( no operation ) literal,
> which can be used
> as 'true' also.
Hmm, I've never heard the character : referred to as
such. Perhaps someone can comment on this, although I
doubt this is the case. IMO, the use of : is just to
obfuscate the fact that its a function name - it could
as easily be a or b or c, or fun.
If that were the case, things would look familiar I'd
expect -
:(){ :|:& };:
fun( { fun|fun& };fun
Declare function fun which calls itself and pipes the
output into another background process. The last
invocation of fun after the ; starts the entire thing.
> [shell]$ :(){ echo "in background"& }
> works?
>
> [shell]$ :(){ echo "in background" } -- NOTE: no
> ampersand( & ) here!
Try it with a semi colon. :(){ echo "foo"; };
In the case without the ; inside - its a background
process, being given as a single command. Its
interpreted the same way you'd write
$ echo "foo"
without a ;. But in a for or do loop - you'd need the
; to end the line.
Whats interesting here is how the :|:& is being used -
this exponentially increases the number of processes
spawned! Basically, pipes the output of one : into the
other background process..
Cheers,
Viksit
--
Viksit Gaur
viksit at aya dot yale dot edu
http://viksit.com
Just because you have a mind like a hammer doesn't mean you should treat
everyone else like a nail - Terry Pratchett
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