What does 2>/dev/null mean?

Question

I would like a brief explanation of the following command line:

grep -i 'abc' content 2>/dev/null 

Answer 1

The > operator redirects the output usually to a file but it can be to a device. You can also use >> to append.

If you don't specify a number then the standard output stream is assumed, but you can also redirect errors:

> file redirects stdout to file
1> file redirects stdout to file

2> file redirects stderr to file

&> file redirects stdout and stderr to file
> file 2>&1 redirects stdout and stderr to file

/dev/null is the null device it takes any input you want and throws it away. It can be used to suppress any output.

Note that > file 2>&1 is an older syntax which still works, &> file is neater, but would not have worked on older systems.

Answer 2

In short, it redirects stderr (fd 2) to the black hole (discards the output of the command).

Some commonly used pattern for redirection:

command > /dev/null 2>&1 &

Run command in the background, discard stdout and stderr

command >> /path/to/log 2>&1 &

Run command, append stdout and stderr to a log file.

In Bash 4+, a shorter (but less readable) form is functional

command &>> /path/to/log

Answer 3

/dev/null is treated as black hole in Linux/Unix, so you can put anything into this but you will not be able to get it back from /dev/null.

Further, 2> means that you are redirecting (i.e. >) the stderr (i.e. 2) into the black hole (i.e. /dev/null)

Your command is:

grep -i 'abc' content 2>/dev/null 

Don't try to end with another forward slash like this - 2>/dev/null/ (it's not a directory).

Answer 4

grep -i 'abc' content will generate output which is displayed on your console, including any errors.

Specifying 2>/dev/null will filter out the errors so that they will not be output to your console.

In more detail: 2 represents the error descriptor, which is where errors are written to. By default they are printed out on the console.

\> redirects output to the specified place, in this case /dev/null

/dev/null is the standard Linux device where you send output that you want ignored.

Answer 5

First we need to talk about > operator. It redirect the output of left of symbol to right of symbol.

So it must thought as :

source_command > target_file

Other things that we must know

0 means stdin 
1 means stdout(useful output)
2 means stderr(error message output)

As default, it works as command 1 > target_file

As to /dev/null --> it is a special file that discards channel output redirect to it.

So in your question it means

Run the command and do not show me the error messages, discard them.