Monday, July 19, 2004
/dev/null
Ok, I promised I'd explain what it is that /dev/null... is...
If you are from the windoze world, I'll try to sum this up as simply as I can.
If you are from the linux/unix/BSD world... move to the next subject because you don't need this explanation.
Everything in the linux/unix/bsd/etc operating system is viewed by the system as a file. Yes, that means the precious $350 DVD burner you bought will be viewed as a lowly FILE by the operating system (if it's even recognized at all...), the same as the file I use to store all my serial numbers to my programs/web sites. The ultimate in democracy - we are all, literally, created equal in the eyes of UNIX. If you don't know what UNIX/Linux is... go away! Just kidding.. I won't try to explain it, though. Do a search. http://www.yahoo.com should help you out.
With the background that everything is a file, /dev/null is therefore a file in the linux/unix operating system. What is it for? Basically, it is a place to which you can banish any output with which you don't want to deal. Your debugger is producing thousands of lines of exceptions? Send it to /dev/null... you get the point.
So, instead of just sending all my random thoughts and rants to /dev/null, I'm going to post some of them here for everyone to enjoy in perpetuity. I think that's spelled correctly.
that is all
more to come...
¶ 9:28:00 PM
If you are from the windoze world, I'll try to sum this up as simply as I can.
If you are from the linux/unix/BSD world... move to the next subject because you don't need this explanation.
Everything in the linux/unix/bsd/etc operating system is viewed by the system as a file. Yes, that means the precious $350 DVD burner you bought will be viewed as a lowly FILE by the operating system (if it's even recognized at all...), the same as the file I use to store all my serial numbers to my programs/web sites. The ultimate in democracy - we are all, literally, created equal in the eyes of UNIX. If you don't know what UNIX/Linux is... go away! Just kidding.. I won't try to explain it, though. Do a search. http://www.yahoo.com should help you out.
With the background that everything is a file, /dev/null is therefore a file in the linux/unix operating system. What is it for? Basically, it is a place to which you can banish any output with which you don't want to deal. Your debugger is producing thousands of lines of exceptions? Send it to /dev/null... you get the point.
So, instead of just sending all my random thoughts and rants to /dev/null, I'm going to post some of them here for everyone to enjoy in perpetuity. I think that's spelled correctly.
that is all
more to come...
¶ 9:28:00 PM
