Rebanein linux you can use the evil bird emoticon (:>) to destroy files, eg `:> important_document.txt`
the bird will eat the file and leave it completely empty!
Leah 
@rebane2001 hmm I suppose thats because its writing nothing into the file but I dont understand the reason for the
Id assume it works without?
Im guessing
: (I mean yeah it does make the face but from a commands perspective I mean)Id assume it works without?
Im guessing
: is ignored or perhaps written into the file?
dakkar@ChaosKitsune https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.html#index-_003a
the colon is a shell command that does nothing
it's often used to perform expansions with side-effects, like:
: ${ARGUMENT:=default value}
: ${MUST_BE_SET:?error message}@rebane2001
Paco@pacostegosaurus yep!:(){:|:&} is equivalent to:
function :() {
: | : &
}or, changing the name:function bomb() {
bomb | bomb &
}which calls itself twice (piping the non-exsitend output of the first call to the second) as a background process, therefore doubling the number of running processes every time (each process exits immediately, but it still bogs down the machine)
@ChaosKitsune @rebane2001
@dakkar @ChaosKitsune @rebane2001 Nice! I remember reading about this some time ago but somehow I missed that : was not only a valid identifier but actually a standard command