INPUT/OUTPUT REDIRECTION

Domain	Definition
Computing	Input/output redirection In Unix, to send ouput from a process to different file or device or to another process via a pipe, or to have a process read its input from a different file, device or pipe. Some other operating systems have similar facilities. To redirect input to come from a file instead of the keyboard, use "<": myprog < myfile Similarly to redirect output to a file instead of the screen: ls > filelist A pipe redirects the output of one process directly into the input of another who \| wc -l A common misuse by beginners is cat myfile \| myprog Which is more or less equivalent to "myprog < myfile" except that it introduces an extra unnecessary cat process and buffer space for the pipe. Even the "<" is unnecessary with many standard Unix commands since they accept input file names as command line arguments anyway. Unix's concept of standard input/output and I/O redirection make it easy to combine simple processes in powerful ways and to use the same commands for different purposes. (1998-04-24). Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)

Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)

HTML Code (1990) (references)

ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)

Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)

Specialty Definition: INPUT/OUTPUT REDIRECTION