null(F) 06 January 1993 null(F) Name null - data sink or empty source Description The null special file /dev/null can always be opened, read from, or writ- ten to. Data written to the null special file is discarded. No data can be read from null since an immediate end-of-file (EOF) occurs; a read(S) system call on null will always return 0 (zero). Examples Unwanted output can be discarded by redirecting the standard output or standard error to /dev/null. The following example shows only those files which are missing from a directory by using ls(C) and discarding anything on standard output: ls file1 file2 ... > /dev/null Sometimes you might not want to see the error messages from a command. If you are looking for a file in a filesystem using the find(C) command, you can ignore the messages (on standard error) telling you that you did not have permission to look at certain directories: find / -name foofile -print 2> /dev/null You can also use null to obtain harmless input. In the following example, grep(C) is forced to output the name of each file containing pattern as well as the matching lines: find / -exec grep pattern {} /dev/null \; find runs grep on every file in the entire filesystem in turn. If /dev/null was not given as an additional file to search, grep would print the matching lines found, but not the name of the file. This is because grep omits the filename when examining only one file. /dev/null acts as a ``dummy'' second file. A more common use of null as input is to discard the contents of a file but leave its entry in the directory: cat /dev/null > file_to_empty An alternative way of doing this is to copy null to the file: cp /dev/null file_to_empty Notes /dev/null is implemented using the mm character special driver, and always has a minor device number of 0 (zero). The mm driver and /dev/null must be present for the correct operation of SCO UNIX System V. Standards conformance null is conformant with: AT&T SVID Issue 2; and X/Open Portability Guide, Issue 3, 1989.