Standard Input

Noun · Development

Definitions

  1. The default input stream (file descriptor 0, or stdin) from which a program reads data — typically the keyboard in an interactive terminal, or the output of another program when connected via a pipe. It is a foundational concept in the Unix philosophy of composable, pipeable commands.

    In plain English: The default channel a program reads from — usually the keyboard, or the output of another program when they're chained together.

    Example: "Run `cat urls.txt | xargs curl` — xargs reads URLs from standard input and passes each one to curl."

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