This does not make sense to me.wibble > /dev/null 2>&1I think it would make more sense if it was something like this:wibble 2>&1 > /dev/nullIn other wordsCommands Output Sendall STDERRORS to STDOUT then SEND it all to /dev/nullWhat is the thinking behind the order of the command redirection xxx > /dev/null 2>1?
Why is redirecting STDERR to /dev/null done this way?
io redirection
The redirects are processed from left to right. If you do2>&1 1> /dev/nullThe first redirect makes stderr point to the stream that stdout points to at that time (which is your tty essentially). It doesn't make stderr an alias of stdout.Then stdout is redirected to the bit bucket. The stdout redirect doesn't affect the previous stderr redirect. stderr still refers to your tty.So:ls file_that_doesnt_exist 2>&1 1> /dev/nullwill print only the error message on your terminal.The bash redirection documentation page mentions this explicitly:Note that the order of redirections is significant.  For example, the command          ls > dirlist 2>&1directs both standard output and standard error to the file dirlist, while the command          ls 2>&1 > dirlistdirects only the standard output to file dirlist, because the standard error was duplicated from the standard output before the standard output was redirected to dirlist.