title: What does >/dev/null 2>&1 mean?
body: <pre><code>diff file1 file2 &gt;/dev/null 2&gt;&amp;1
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I know what this does. It's running the command diff, and it checks its exit status, ignoring the output of diff.</p>
  
  <p>I just don't know what this part means:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;/dev/null 2&gt;&amp;1
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>what's  > 
  and &amp;</p>
  
  <p>(Not sure what these are called, so I can't look this up)
  (This is in Bourne Shell)</p>