Linux 下的设备特殊文件 /dev/null与/dev/zero

 今天在看<<unix 环境高级编程》的时候看到了/dev/zero设备，不是很明白什么意思，就从网上找了找，我心里存在着一个疑问，见最后。

/dev/null，外号叫无底洞，你可以向它输出任何数据，它通吃，并且不会撑着！

/dev/zero,是一个输入设备，你可你用它来初始化文件。
/dev/null------它是空设备，也称为位桶（bit bucket）。任何写入它的输出都会被抛弃。如果不想让消息以标准输出显示或写入文件，那么可以将消息重定向到位桶。
/dev/zero------该设备无穷尽地提供0，可以使用任何你需要的数目——设备提供的要多的多。他可以用于向设备或文件写入字符串0。

oracle@localhost oracle]$if=/dev/zero of=./test.txt bs=1k count=1
oracle@localhost oracle]$ ls -l
total 4
-rw-r--r-- 1 oracle dba 1024 Jul 15 16:56 test.txt

eg,

find / -name access_log 2>/dev/null

这样，一些诸如一些错误信息就不会显示出来。



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/dev/null：

In Unix-like operating systems, /dev/null or the null device is a special file that discards all data written to it, and provides no data to any process that reads from it (it returns EOF). In Unix programmer jargon, it may also be called the bit bucket or black hole.

The null device is typically used for disposing of unwanted output streams of a process, or as a convenient empty file for input streams. This is usually done by redirection.

This entity is a common inspiration for technical jargon expressions and metaphors by Unix programmers, e.g. "please send complaints to /dev/null" or "my mail got archived in /dev/null", being jocular ways of saying, respectively: "don't bother to send any complaints" and "my mail got deleted". A famous advertisement for the Titanium PowerBook G4 read [The Titanium Powerbook G4] Sends other UNIX boxes to /dev/null.

The null device is also a favorite subject of technical jokes, such as warning users that the system's /dev/null is already 98% full. The April Fool's, 1995 issue of the German magazine c't reported on an enhanced /dev/null chip that would efficiently dispose of the incoming data by converting it to flicker on an internal glowing LED.

/dev/null is a special file, not a directory (folder), so one cannot move files into it with the Unix mv command. See rm for the proper way to delete files in Unix.

The equivalent device in CP/M (and later DOS and Windows) is called NUL:, and on some versions of DOS just NUL (for example, one may hide output by directing it to NUL, e.g. PAUSE>NUL, which waits for the user to press any key without printing anything to the screen). Under classic Amiga operating systems, the device's name is NIL:. In Windows NT and its successors, it is named \Device\Null internally, though, the DOS NUL is a symbolic link to it. Similarly, in OpenVMS the device is named NL:.


/dev/zero：

In Unix-like operating systems, /dev/zero is a special file that provides as many null characters (ASCII NULL, 0x00; not ASCII character "digit zero", "0", 0x30) as are read from it. One of the typical uses is to provide a character stream for overwriting information. Another might be to generate a clean file of a certain size. Using mmap to map /dev/zero to RAM is the BSD way of implementing shared memory.

# Initialise partition (important note: trying out this command will eradicate 
# any files that were on the partition, make sure you have a backup of any important data.)
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda7

# Create a large empty file called 'foobar'
dd if=/dev/zero of=foobar count=1000 bs=1000

Like /dev/null, /dev/zero acts as a source and sink for data. All writes to /dev/zero succeed with no other effects (the same as for /dev/null, although /dev/null is the more commonly used data sink); all reads on /dev/zero return as many NULs as characters requested.

（下面的问题会的告诉我一声）

存在的疑问：apue上面的程序清单15-12的目的是什么？书上的p430最小面说到：/dev/zero接受任何写向它的数据，但是又忽略这些数据。问题来了，既然是忽略这些数据，那么怎么使用/dev/zero实现父子进城之间的共享内存呢？