IDG Contributor Network: Sending data into the void with /dev/null
Unix systems make it easy to make output that you don't want to see simply disappear. Toss output into the void. Send errors in one direction, useful output in another. Something of a bit bucket, black hole, and digital garbage disposal, /dev/null is one of the very clever things that Unix introduced into the computing world. And what a very clever and unusual one!
Nearly everyone who spends time on the Unix command line has probably heard of /dev/null and a good many of us probably use it routinely -- especially those of us who write scripts. But how much have you thought about the file's many peculiarities? Let's take a deep dive into our systems' implementation of anti-matter and see how very unusual a thing it really is.
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