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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Redirecting standard out to /dev/null goes to file "/dev/null" instead Post 302598192 by jbmorrisonjr on Monday 13th of February 2012 06:07:00 PM
Old 02-13-2012
Redirecting standard out to /dev/null goes to file "/dev/null" instead

I apologize if this question has been answered else where or is too elementary.

I ran across a KSH script (long unimportant story) that does this:

Code:
if [ blahblah ] ; then
   CAS_SRC_LOG="/var/log/cas_src.log 2>&1"
else
   CAS_SRC_LOG="/dev/null 2>&1"
fi

then does this:

Code:
    /usr/bin/echo "heartbeat: `/usr/bin/date` " >> $CAS_SRC_LOG

In other words, based on some condition, the standard output destination is set to a either a file or to null. That was the intent.

In actuality, instead of going to null, the output goes to a file /dev/"null 2>&1"


Code:
-rw-r--r--    1 root     system     76774847 Feb 13 17:07 null 2>&1

My question is, what are the substitution and command line parsing rules? Why didn't the built command line string get parsed as expected?





Thanks
John Morrison

Last edited by methyl; 06-07-2012 at 07:40 AM.. Reason: please use code tags
 

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exit(1)                                                            User Commands                                                           exit(1)

NAME
exit, return, goto - shell built-in functions to enable the execution of the shell to advance beyond its sequence of steps SYNOPSIS
sh exit [n] return [n] csh exit [ ( expr )] goto label ksh *exit [n] *return [n] DESCRIPTION
sh exit will cause the calling shell or shell script to exit with the exit status specified by n. If n is omitted the exit status is that of the last command executed (an EOF will also cause the shell to exit.) return causes a function to exit with the return value specified by n. If n is omitted, the return status is that of the last command exe- cuted. csh exit will cause the calling shell or shell script to exit, either with the value of the status variable or with the value specified by the expression expr. The goto built-in uses a specified label as a search string amongst commands. The shell rewinds its input as much as possible and searches for a line of the form label: possibly preceded by space or tab characters. Execution continues after the indicated line. It is an error to jump to a label that occurs between a while or for built-in command and its corresponding end. ksh exit will cause the calling shell or shell script to exit with the exit status specified by n. The value will be the least significant 8 bits of the specified status. If n is omitted then the exit status is that of the last command executed. When exit occurs when executing a trap, the last command refers to the command that executed before the trap was invoked. An end-of-file will also cause the shell to exit except for a shell which has the ignoreeof option (See set below) turned on. return causes a shell function or '.' script to return to the invoking script with the return status specified by n. The value will be the least significant 8 bits of the specified status. If n is omitted then the return status is that of the last command executed. If return is invoked while not in a function or a '.' script, then it is the same as an exit. On this man page, ksh(1) commands that are preceded by one or two * (asterisks) are treated specially in the following ways: 1. Variable assignment lists preceding the command remain in effect when the command completes. 2. I/O redirections are processed after variable assignments. 3. Errors cause a script that contains them to abort. 4. Words, following a command preceded by ** that are in the format of a variable assignment, are expanded with the same rules as a vari- able assignment. This means that tilde substitution is performed after the = sign and word splitting and file name generation are not performed. ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes: +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | |Availability |SUNWcsu | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ SEE ALSO
break(1), csh(1), ksh(1), sh(1), attributes(5) SunOS 5.10 15 Apr 1994 exit(1)
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