Re: [9fans] netcat, the only stdin/stdout redirector to tcp/udp conns?

["David Leimbach" <leimy2k@gmail.com>]

On 4/4/06, Paul Hebble <maceo@imsa.edu> wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 04, 2006 at 09:34:56PM +0200, "Nils O. Selåsdal" wrote:
> > Lluís Batlle i Rossell wrote:
> > >Am I missing something? Which is the program I'm expecting to find for
> > >that redirection?
>
> It's always the one you least expect:
>
>        Bash handles several filenames  specially  when  they  are
>        used in redirections, as described in the following table:
>
>               /dev/tcp/host/port
>                      If  host  is  a  valid  hostname or Internet
>                      address, and port is an integer port  number
>                      or service name, bash attempts to open a TCP
>                      connection to the corresponding socket.
>               /dev/udp/host/port
>                      If host is  a  valid  hostname  or  Internet
>                      address,  and port is an integer port number
>                      or service name, bash attempts to open a UDP
>                      connection to the corresponding socket.
>
> (Sorry for the weird quoting, I already deleted Lluís's email, so I had to
>  wait for another reply to get on the thread.)
>

It's worth noting /dev/tcp is part of bash.  zsh has it's own ways of
doing the same stuff.  netcat is *not* the only way to do this stuff
on unix... it just appears to be the only shell-agnostic way.

Dave

> --
>         Paul
>