Null Device
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In some operating systems, the null device is a device file that discards all data written to it but reports that the write operation succeeded. This device is called /dev/null on Unix and Unix-like systems, NUL: (see TOPS-20) or NUL on CP/M and DOS (internally \DEV\NUL ), nul on OS/2 and newer Windows systems (internally \Device\Null on Windows NT), NIL: on Amiga operating systems, and NL: on OpenVMS. In Windows Powershell, the equivalent is $null . It provides no data to any process that reads from it, yielding EOF immediately. In IBM operating systems DOS/360 and successors and also in OS/360 and successors such files would be assigned in JCL to DD DUMMY . In programmer jargon, especially Unix jargon, it may also be called the bit bucket or black hole.
In some operating systems, the null device is a device file that discards all data written to it but reports that the write operation succeeded. This device is called /dev/null on Unix and Unix-like systems, NUL: (see TOPS-20) or NUL on CP/M and DOS (internally \DEV\NUL ), nul on OS/2 and newer Windows systems (internally \Device\Null on Windows NT), NIL: on Amiga operating systems, and NL: on OpenVMS. In Windows Powershell, the equivalent is $null . It provides no data to any process that reads from it, yielding EOF immediately. In IBM operating systems DOS/360 and successors and also in OS/360 and successors such files would be assigned in JCL to DD DUMMY . In programmer jargon, especially Unix jargon, it may also be called the bit bucket or black hole. ==History== is described as an empty regular file in Version 4 Unix. The Version 5 Unix manual describes a device with modern semantics. ==Usage== The null device is typically used for disposing of unwanted output streams of a process, or as a convenient empty file for input streams. This is usually done by redirection. For example, tar -c -f /dev/null "example directory" can be used to dry-run the TAR file archiving utility to see if any errors would occur but without writing any file. The /dev/null device is a special file, not a directory, so one cannot move a whole file or directory into it with the Unix mv command. Unix shell command cat /dev/null would do nothing, equivalent to true or : command.
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