[OT] What does this pipe do?

[Oliver Fromme]

Robert Huff wrote:
 > youshi10 at u.washington.edu writes:
 > >  I know this is a Unix shell command, and off-topic, but I'm
 > >  curious. I've been reading a few 'make' commands at work that end
 > >  in "|&" and I was wondering if that redirection string is
 > >  synonymous to "| /dev/stdout". 
 > 
 >         That's (t)csh-speak for "send both stdout and stderr to the
 > pipe".  '|' only covers stdout.

Just for completeness, ">&" (file) and ">|" (pipe) are also
supported by zsh (which is a bourne-shell like sh, ksh or bash).
In fact it's simply a shortcut for "2>&1" (which means to dup
descriptor 2 [=stderr] to desciptor 1 [=stdout]).

The effect is, as several people have pointed out, to redirect
both stdout and stderr to the same file or pipe, respectively.

Best regards
   Oliver

-- 
Oliver Fromme,  secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing
Dienstleistungen mit Schwerpunkt FreeBSD: http://www.secnetix.de/bsd
Any opinions expressed in this message may be personal to the author
and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of secnetix in any way.

"That's what I love about GUIs: They make simple tasks easier,
and complex tasks impossible."
        -- John William Chambless