Bash Redirection Redirecting both STDOUT and STDERR
Example
File descriptors like 0 and 1 are pointers. We change what file descriptors point to with redirection. >/dev/null means 1 points to /dev/null.
First we point 1 (STDOUT) to /dev/null then point 2 (STDERR) to whatever 1 points to.
# STDERR is redirect to STDOUT: redirected to /dev/null,
# effectually redirecting both STDERR and STDOUT to /dev/null
echo 'hello' > /dev/null 2>&1
4.0
This can be further shortened to the following:
echo 'hello' &> /dev/null
However, this form may be undesirable in production if shell compatibility is a concern as it conflicts with POSIX, introduces parsing ambiguity, and shells without this feature will misinterpret it:
# Actual code
echo 'hello' &> /dev/null
echo 'hello' &> /dev/null 'goodbye'
# Desired behavior
echo 'hello' > /dev/null 2>&1
echo 'hello' 'goodbye' > /dev/null 2>&1
# Actual behavior
echo 'hello' &
echo 'hello' & goodbye > /dev/null
NOTE: &> is known to work as desired in both Bash and Zsh.
