Redirections之一

which perl 2> /dev/null

Redirection of output causes the file whose name results from the expansion of word to be opened for writing on file descriptor n, or the standard output (file descriptor 1) if n is not specified. If the file does not exist it is created; if it does exist it is truncated to zero size.

The general format for redirecting output is:

[n]>[|]word

If the redirection operator is ‘>’, and the noclobber option to the set builtin has been enabled, the redirection will fail if the file whose name results from the expansion of word exists and is a regular file. If the redirection operator is ‘>|’, or the redirection operator is ‘>’ and the noclobber option is not enabled, the redirection is attempted even if the file named by word exists.

关于/dev/null，In Unix-like operating systems, /dev/null or the null device is a special file that discards all data written to it but reports that the write operation succeeded.

standard output (file descriptor 1)， standard error (file descriptor 2)， the standard input (file descriptor 0)

故该行命令其实是：执行which perl，不记录可能出现的错误信息。