NAME

       null, zero - data sink

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 containing 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  programs  will  act
       strangely.

SEE ALSO

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

COLOPHON

       This  page  is  part of release 3.54 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/.