Purpose of /bin/true

XaViaR · 05-09-2005, 10:34 AM

Hello,

I was wondering what is the purpose of /bin/true? Is it like /bin/false? All comments are welcome! :-)

rose_bud4201 · 05-09-2005, 10:42 AM

Yep, it is exactly like /bin/false (only, with slightly more truth). /bin/false always returns non-0, and /bin/true always returns 0.

The man page: http://man.linuxquestions.org/index....pe=2&section=1

It even has a GUI ;-)
http://www.mds.mdh.se/~dat95jnn/linux/gtrue/

XaViaR · 05-09-2005, 10:52 AM

Can you please give me an instance when you would choose to use /bin/true over /bin/false as your shell?

Thanks!

rose_bud4201 · 05-09-2005, 12:07 PM

while true
do
echo "Hello World!"
done

(you may notice, it's not a particularly useful binary...)