Ignoring Command Output in Linux
In Linux, you can ignore the output of a command by
redirecting it to /dev/null
, a special file
that discards all data written to it. There are different
ways to ignore various types of output:
command > /dev/null # To ignore the standard output of a command
command 2> /dev/null # To ignore the standard error of a command
command > /dev/null 2>&1 # To ignore both the standard output and standard error of a command
# Examples:
ls > /dev/null # If you want to ignore the standard output of ls
ls /root 2> /dev/null # If you want to ignore the standard error of ls (e.g., when it encounters a directory it cannot access)
ls /root > /dev/null 2>&1 # If you want to ignore both the standard output and standard error of ls
command &>/dev/null # In Bash, you can use &>/dev/null to ignore both stdout and stderr
ls /some/directory > /dev/null 2>&1 # To ignore the output of a command that lists the contents of a directory