To redirect both the output and the errors of a Bash command to /dev/null, you can use the following syntax:
command > /dev/null 2>&1
Here's what this command does:
- ">" is the redirection operator. It redirects the standard output (stdout) of "command" to a specified file. In this case, the file is "/dev/null".
- "/dev/null" is a special file that discards all data written to it (it's often used to suppress output). You can think of it as the black hole of your Linux system.
- "2>&1" redirects the standard error (stderr, file descriptor 2) to the same location as stdout (file descriptor 1).
In simple terms, "command > /dev/null 2>&1" will execute "command", and both the standard output and standard error will be redirected to "/dev/null", effectively silencing all output from the command.
Here's an example with a real command:
ls /some/nonexistent/directory > /dev/null 2>&1
This command tries to list the contents of a non-existent directory. Normally, it would produce an error message, but the redirection to "/dev/null" means that you won't see this error message.