On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 20:37:23 +0800, John Summerfield <debian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Tuesday 30 November 2004 20:18, Andrei Nestor wrote: > > "> file" is equivalent to "cp /dev/null file", which means the > > contents of the file is cleared > > probably those lines are there to clear the ttys before spawning a > > login prompt on them. > > I don't think that writting nothing on the ttys actually does that. > > clear >/dev/tty$i possibly would (if TERM was set properly). > yes, it seems that what i said was just part of what > file does: the following is from the bash man page Redirecting Output Redirection of output causes the file whose name results from the expansion of word to be opened for writing on file descriptor n, or the standard output (file descriptor 1) if n is not specified. If the file does not exist it is created; if it does exist it is truncated to zero size. The general format for redirecting output is: [n]>word If the redirection operator is >, and the noclobber option to the set builtin has been enabled, the redirection will fail if the file whose name results from the expansion of word exists and is a regular file. If the redirection operator is >|, or the redirection operator is > and the noclobber option to the set builtin command is not enabled, the redirection is attempted even if the file named by word exists. so, the specified tty is opened for writing on file descriptor 1 (stdout) -- andrei P.S.: OS/400 Rulez.