Special computer file that discards all writes
Also known as null device · NUL · \Device\Null
6 statements · 17% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations
3 identifiers linking /dev/null across the web's reference databases
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0
In some operating systems, the null device is a device file that discards all data written to it but reports that the write operation succeeded. This device is called /dev/null on Unix and Unix-like systems, NUL: or NUL on CP/M and DOS, nul on OS/2 and newer Windows systems, NIL: on Amiga operating systems, and NL: on OpenVMS. In Windows Powershell, the equivalent is $null. It provides no data to any process that reads from it, yielding EOF immediately. In IBM operating systems DOS/360 and successors and also in OS/360 and successors such files would be assigned in JCL to DD DUMMY.