What does an ampersand at the beginning of a line do in csh? It seems to be ignored (with no error message), but why?
A:
I can't find anything in csh docs about it. However, I know in make it suppresses any output from the command (but still runs it). Perhaps that's what it is doing.
T.E.D.
2010-02-22 22:25:10
In which version of 'make' does ' I know of '-' to stop 'make' paying attention to a non-zero exit status.
Jonathan Leffler
2010-02-23 16:39:39
+2
A:
Found something interesting:
The semicolon (;) character separates successive commands on a single command line. For example,
% <command1> ; <command2>
executes <command1>, and when it finishes, <command2> gets executed.
The ampersand character (&) is similar to the semicolon (;) but does not wait for <command1> to finish.
Maybe it's treating it like an empty command?
JoelFan
2010-02-22 23:30:52
Jonathan Leffler
2010-02-22 23:46:06