On 3/5/06, Tony Baechler <tony@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi. I'm sorry to be dense, but I don't understand the 2&1 syntax. I > thought the & put a process in the background but I've seen examples > of using a double && to separate commands. Is this shell-specific? The ampersand can mean a couple of things in bash. I'm pretty sure other shells work the same way, though. The single ampersand after a command means to put it in the background. Double ampersands mean AND, handy if you want to execute two programs but want to sort of queue-up the second one. The expression on the right of the && will be executed if the expression on the right is true (exited without error). I don't know stderr very well but it's yet another different usage of the ampersand. _______________________________________________ Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list