zero

DESCRIPTION
       Data written to a null or zero special file is discarded.

       Reads  from  the  null  special  file  always return end of file (i.e.,
       read(2) returns 0), whereas reads from zero always  return  bytes  con-
       taining zero (\0 characters).

       null and zero are typically created by:

              mknod -m 666 /dev/null c 1 3
              mknod -m 666 /dev/zero c 1 5
              chown root:root /dev/null /dev/zero

FILES
       /dev/null
       /dev/zero

NOTES
       If these devices are not writable and readable for all users, many pro-
       grams will act strangely.

SEE ALSO
       chown(1), mknod(1), full(4)

COLOPHON
       This page is part of release 3.23 of the Linux  man-pages  project.   A
       description  of  the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



Linux                             2009-02-23                           NULL(4)