Xref: utzoo comp.unix.questions:9380 comp.bugs.4bsd:1019
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!stl!stc!root44!aegl
From: aegl@root.co.uk (Tony Luck)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.bugs.4bsd
Subject: Re: more unix jokes - /dev/null
Keywords: poor man's Unix
Message-ID: <637@root44.co.uk>
Date: 22 Sep 88 08:28:03 GMT
References: <8488@smoke.ARPA> <26090@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <1049@sybase.sybase.com> <1414@star.cs.vu.nl>
Reply-To: aegl@root44.UUCP (Tony Luck)
Organization: UniSoft Ltd, London, England
Lines: 28

In article <1414@star.cs.vu.nl> maart@cs.vu.nl (Maarten Litmaath) writes:
>If one wants to run a command with output getting discarded, the obvious
>solution is:
>
>	command > /dev/null
>
>But what would you do if you happened to have no such device? :-)
>Is the intended still possible?
>
>Yes! (Better use the Bourne shell.)
>
>
>	command 1< /etc/passwd 2<&1
>
>:-)

This won't work with a well written 'command' as file descriptors 1 and 2
will be open for *reading* not for *writing*. And we all know how careful
programs are to check that their writes succeed ...

	main()
	{
		printf("Hello, world\n");
	}

Oh well perhaps there might be one or two utilities that don't check :-(

-Tony Luck (UniSoft Ltd.)