Redirection

Definitions

1. The mechanism of sending a command's input or output to a file or another command instead of the default terminal. In Unix shells, > redirects stdout to a file, >> appends, 2> redirects stderr, and < reads from a file. Also used in HTTP (301/302 status codes) to send browsers to a different URL.

   In plain English: Sending output somewhere other than the screen — like telling a command 'write your results to this file instead of showing them to me.'

   Example: "ls > files.txt redirects the directory listing into a file instead of printing it on screen."

Related Terms

• Field Separator
• Pattern Action
• Pipe
• Shebang
• Stdin/Stdout/Stderr
• Shell Builtin
• Shell Expansion
• Sink
• Stderr
• Stdin
• Stdout
• TTY