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  • I haven't pointed it to anything, the whole thing is in the example. I see here it being described as being duplicated (which I, for better or for worse, understood as making a copy). So I don't see how what you're saying does not contradict this. Commented May 20, 2019 at 0:23
  • In this source, while talking about 2>&1, the author says that "This one duplicates file descriptor 2 to be a copy of file descriptor 1". Commented May 20, 2019 at 0:29
  • I understand what you're saying now. You're correct: Fd 3 is now pointing to a copy of the thing fd 1 was pointing to before you redirected fd 1 to /dev/null. So if anything were written to fd 3, yes, it would get printed to the terminal. But you haven't sent anything to fd 3. Commented May 20, 2019 at 0:49
  • But if I were to use 2 instead of 3, it would print to the terminal and I wouldn't have sent anything either (not that I know of, I mean). There's a difference here that escapes me. Commented May 20, 2019 at 0:52