Comments on: What does “> /dev/null 2>&1″ mean?

By: Gaurav Jain

Gaurav Jain — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:20:26 +0000

Just to add here, there also exists the following:

command &>filename

Above redirects STDOUT as well as STDERR of the command to file-name.

By: LinuxViaMac

LinuxViaMac — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 00:01:05 +0000

Yay! Now I can surpress output in a nonconformist way that shows off my secret knowledge:

echo blah >&2> /dev/null

By: Laika

Laika — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 15:18:03 +0000

Thanks, short, concise and clear: it’s a pleasure to find such an answer to my question.

Laike,
still orbiting

By: Purvez

Purvez — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 09:11:58 +0000

@Xaprb Some posts are TIMELESS. 5 Years later I found this useful too!! Thanks.

By: Rod Elias

Rod Elias — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 12:16:10 +0000

@Gohar Sultan
Are you using csh?
If so,

man csh

>& name
>&! name

The file name is used as standard output. If the file does not exist then it is created; if the file exists, it is truncated, its previous contents being lost.

If the shell variable noclobber is set, then the file must not exist or be a character special file (e.g., a terminal or ‘/dev/null’) or an error results. This helps prevent accidental destruction of files. In this case the `!’ forms can used to suppress this check.

The forms involving `&’ route the diagnostic output into the specified file as well as the standard output. name is expanded in the same way as `<' input filenames are.

Hope this helps!