NULL(4) Linux Programmer's Manual NULL(4)
NAME
null, zero - data sink
DESCRIPTION
Data written to a null or zero special file is discarded.
Reads from the null special file always return end of file (i.e.,
read(2) returns 0), whereas reads from zero always return bytes con-
taining zero (\0 characters).
null and zero are typically created by:
mknod -m 666 /dev/null c 1 3
mknod -m 666 /dev/zero c 1 5
chown root:root /dev/null /dev/zero
FILES
/dev/null
/dev/zero
NOTES
If these devices are not writable and readable for all users, many pro-
grams will act strangely.
SEE ALSO
chown(1), mknod(1), full(4)
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.53 of the Linux man-pages project. A
description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Linux 2009-02-23 NULL(4)