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I/O RedirectionIn this lesson, we will explore a powerful feature used by many command line programs called input/output redirection. As we have seen, many commands such as ls print their output on the display. This does not have to be the case, however. By using some special notations we can redirect the output of many commands to files, devices, and even to the input of other commands. Standard OutputMost command line programs that display their results do so by sending their results to a facility called standard output. By default, standard output directs its contents to the display. To redirect standard output to a file, the ">" character is used like this: [me@linuxbox me]$ ls > file_list.txt In this example, the ls command is executed and the results are written in a file named file_list.txt. Since the output of ls was redirected to the file, no results appear on the display. Each time the command above is repeated, file_list.txt is overwritten from the beginning with the output of the command ls. If you want the new results to be appended to the file instead, use ">>" like this: [me@linuxbox me]$ ls >> file_list.txt When the results are appended, the new results are added to the end of the file, thus making the file longer each time the command is repeated. If the file does not exist when you attempt to append the redirected output, the file will be created. Standard InputMany commands can accept input from a facility called standard input. By default, standard input gets its contents from the keyboard, but like standard output, it can be redirected. To redirect standard input from a file instead of the keyboard, the "<" character is used like this: [me@linuxbox me]$ sort < file_list.txt In the example above, we used the sort command to process the contents of file_list.txt. The results are output on the display since the standard output was not redirected. We could redirect standard output to another file like this: [me@linuxbox me]$ sort < file_list.txt > sorted_file_list.txt As you can see, a command can have both its input and output redirected. Be aware that the order of the redirection does not matter. The only requirement is that the redirection operators (the "<" and ">") must appear after the other options and arguments in the command. PipelinesThe most useful and powerful thing you can do with I/O redirection is to connect multiple commands together with what are called pipelines. With pipelines, the standard output of one command is fed into the standard input of another. Here is my absolute favorite: [me@linuxbox me]$ ls -l | less In this example, the output of the ls command is fed into less. By using this "| less" trick, you can make any command have scrolling output. I use this technique all the time. By connecting commands together, you can
acomplish amazing feats. Here are some examples
you'll want to try:
FiltersOne kind of program frequently used in pipelines is
called filters. Filters take standard input
and perform an operation upon it and send the
results to standard output. In this way, they can be
combined to process information in powerful ways. Here
are some of the common programs that can act as
filters:
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© 2000-2019, William E. Shotts, Jr. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this copyright notice is preserved. Linux® is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. |