• @[email protected]
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      68 months ago

      .“:>>” is “append null” right? Do you get a file with a single ASCII NUL or is it truly empty?

      • Trailblazing Braille Taser
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        148 months ago

        Not really. I believe : is the “true” builtin. So it’s like running a program that exits with zero and writes nothing to stdout. The >> streams the empty stdout into the named file.

    • @gaterush
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      38 months ago

      that’s awesome, did not know about that handy operator!

      • @[email protected]
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        38 months ago

        Yeah!

        it’s basically a noop, I use it as a placeholder when I’m writing a script, since bash doesn’t accept code blocks with no commands