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What does ls > list and ls >> list do? They don't seem to do anything on my system.

jasonwryan
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toa
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  • Checkout: http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/io-redirection.html basicly > redirects output of command, >> also redirect but append. – alpert Sep 29 '14 at 12:53
  • Start with what finding out what `ls` does. Then apply that before and after running the commands presented. – Anthon Sep 29 '14 at 12:54

2 Answers2

1
ls > list

Creates a new file named list and adds the contents of ls command into that file.

You can check the contents of the file list by typing the command as,

cat list

Now, for the second command,

ls >> list

It will append the contents of the ls command to the file named list. So the difference would be if you execute this command 5 times, the output of ls command would be written 5 times to the list file but for the first command each and every time, the output would be overwritten.

Ramesh
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0

If you're making

ls > list

and then

ls >> list

you can see the difference by just typing

cat list

after each time.

4m1nh4j1
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