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 containing zero (\0 characters).

null and zero are typically created by:

FILES¶

/dev/null
/dev/zero

NOTES¶

If these devices are not writable and readable for all users, many programs 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/.