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> and >> in Bash

Authors
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    Name
    hwahyeon
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> and >> : Redirection operators to save command output to a file

> : Overwrite (delete existing content and write new content)

echo "Hello" > hello.txt

Result:

  • If hello.txt doesn't exist, it will be created
  • If it does exist, its content will be cleared and replaced with "Hello"

>> : Append (add new content at the end of the file)

echo "See you again" >> hello.txt

Result:

  • Adds "See you again" as a new line at the end of hello.txt
  • Keeps the existing content unchanged

Example:

ls -l > ls.txt

Explanation:

  • This command runs ls -l, which shows a detailed list of files in the current folder
  • Instead of printing the result in the terminal, it saves the output to a file named ls.txt
  • If ls.txt already exists, its content will be overwritten