On Thu, 2002-06-06 at 20:04, The Gyzmo wrote: > Why do you have to put '2>&1' after '/dev/null' when > piping something to /dev/null, like this:? > > [command] > /dev/null 2>&1
The "> /dev/null" redirects file descriptor 1 (stdout) to /dev/null. The "2>&1" redirects file descriptor 2 (stderr) to file descriptor 1 (stdout, which was already redirected to /dev/null). The combined effect is to redirect both stdout and stderr to /dev/null, so that nothing goes to the terminal, unless the program itself does something funny with the file descriptors (not likely). Cheers, -- Javier Gostling Ingeniero de Sistemas Virtualia S.A. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fono: +56 (2) 202-6264 x 130 Fax: +56 (2) 342-8763 Av. Kennedy 5757, of 1502 Las Condes Santiago Chile _______________________________________________ Redhat-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
