stdout stdin

Furlinastis · 08-11-2005, 10:27 PM

I'm a little confused if I'm correct or not, I'm thinking this might be painfully obvious

If I was to do:

$ ls
file1
file2
file3
dir1
dir2

file* and dir* are stdout, correct?

I'm just a little hazy on what standard input is. Would me typing "ls" be stdin?

Or would this be a better example:

$ dc
2 2 * p
4

Is 2 2 * p stdin? or just 2 2? Or is my thinking way off base?

Matir · 08-11-2005, 10:39 PM

stdin is basically any typed (or piped) input to a program. For example, the "2 2 * p" is stdin to dc. Commands at the prompt are stdin to bash. Stdout is MOST of what's printed on the screen. There's also stderr, which is where error messages should be printed. Generally, stdout and stderr look the same to users, though they can be separated using output redirection.

Furlinastis · 08-11-2005, 10:55 PM

ok ... simple enough ... thanks

Matir · 08-11-2005, 11:00 PM

No problem. I hope my explanation cleared things up better than it confused things.