2>
 

For the following:

mkdir /tmp/newdir 2> /dev/null

What does the "2>" mean?

Please advise.

a long time since i've done that kind of scripting, but i believe the 2 represents standard output and the > redirects that output to /dev/null

standard error actually 1 is all output.
2 is error.

here is teh example , you have file1 in your home directory adn you issue command

ls file1 file2 2>A

as file2 doesn't exists, in this case the error output will be redirected to A (file)

and if you use like this

ls file1 file2 1>A

guess what would be in A ?

:)