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Asked Jul 07 '21 at 22:21

Active Jul 07 '21 at 22:21

Viewed 9 times

If I run this command in a Linux shell:

echo 'hello world' &> /dev/null

I get no output, as expected. However, if I run:

sh -c "echo 'hello world' &> /dev/null"

It outputs hello world. Why is this? I thought that sh -c ran the given command inside a new shell; the given command should direct its output to /dev/null, leaving nothing to stdout for sh -c to return?

asked Jul 07 '21 at 22:21

Jordan

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`&>` is a bash feature that only works in bash, so you'd have to use `bash -c` to get the effect you want. In `sh`, the line is interpreted as the two commands `echo 'hello world' &` and `> /dev/null` – that other guy Jul 07 '21 at 22:23
Ah, got it. Is there a `sh` equivalent for it? – Jordan Jul 07 '21 at 22:28
In `sh` you would use `> /dev/null 2>&1` – that other guy Jul 07 '21 at 22:31

Linux sh -c output to /dev/null

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