The Nineteenth Byte

Think about it this way: If you manage to turn /dev/null into a folder so you can symlink trash to it (which is possible, you just gotta remove the device file and replace it with a mounted nullfs), any program that depends on piping something to /dev/null will utterly break.

Downgoat

I could mount nullfs into /dev/nullgoat and then do ln -s ~/.trash /dev/nullgoat?

Dennis

@Pavel mv: cannot stat ‘/dev/null/’: Not a directory

@Downgoat Sure, that should work.

Maltysen

@flawr did I do math for your challenge right?

Dennis

12:50 AM

It's a horrible idea, but it should.

Maltysen

Downgoat

@Dennis why so bad idea?

Dennis

Because you usually don't mount random stuff in your device files. Why not mount nullfs as ~/.trash directly?

Pavel

wait is it /dev/null/ or /dev/null

Downgoat

@Dennis because then $ readlink ~/.trash joke wouldn't work

Dennis

12:53 AM

Making random changes to your file system for the sake of puns: always a good idea.

Is that how you ended up chmodding /usr/bin?

Downgoat

No comment

We've goat this farAborted

Pavel

sudo mv /dev/null ~/.trash?

Dennis

That should work, yes.

redstarcoder

I'll try it

quartata

no pls

redstarcoder

12:56 AM

huh, it did

quartata

Undefined behavior

Pavel

I never really understood the point of /dev/null

quartata

Both in terms of mv and your kernel

Dennis

When you need to discard output, it has to go somewhere. A few programs will allow you to just close the file descriptor, but most won't. You could pipe it to a process that produces no output, but that would just consume resources.

Pavel

Wait, if you mv null to somewhere arbitrary on your system, does it still work?

redstarcoder

1:01 AM

No

orlp

/dev/null

is a node of the filesystem

redstarcoder

I copied it instead of moving it this time actually, could be different behaviour

orlp

it has a special attributes

(beyond permissions)

redstarcoder

Yeah

orlp

when the kernel encounters a file with such attributes

it will call special functions

instead of the regular write/read functions

Dennis

1:02 AM

mv just sees an empty file, so it will create an empty file and remove the device file.

Pro tip: Don't try moving /dev/zero.

redstarcoder

^^ Thanks, I was wondering what was going on

orlp

@Dennis mv never creates and then removes

Pavel

I'm guessing that copies 0 to memory until it runs out?

orlp

it just changes the filesystem pointers itself

Dennis

In a cross-fs move? I find that hard to believe.

orlp

1:03 AM

@Dennis oh in a cross fs, sure

redstarcoder

/dev -> /home for me would be cross fs

orlp

mknod nullfilename c 1 3

chmod nullfilename 666

now you have a nullfilename file that has the same special bits set as /dev/null

Pavel

what is chmod?

redstarcoder

change permissions

orlp

it changes permissions

Dennis

1:05 AM

Golfed: mknod -m 666 nullfilename c 1 3

@Pavel If by memory you mean hard disk, yes.

redstarcoder

So I can move /dev/null to another partition and move it back, but touch /dev/null definitely doesn't work

orlp

@redstarcoder I really hope you're doing this stuff in a VM

redstarcoder

I should be

I'm also not too worried, I could always boot into a live USB

orlp

@redstarcoder it can destroy all your files

and fuck up your system

redstarcoder

^^ How?

orlp

1:10 AM

programs expect /dev/null to be empty

if they read from it

they might start copying stuff from it to other places

corrupting other stuff

redstarcoder

Has that happened before? O:

LegionMammal978

@flawr <blah>/#&[12.345]

Wheat Wizard

What happens if a bounty expires and I'm the only one that has answered the question?

Pavel

You lose the bounty

Qwerp-Derp

Hello

Dennis

1:16 AM

Bounties are either awarded or lost, not counting exceptional circumstances.

Wheat Wizard

well I hope someone answers in the next 4 days then

Pavel

If no one does, can I write a non-answer for free rep?

Dennis

You can, but you'll lose your rep when I delete the answer.

TL;DR no

Wheat Wizard

you would also need 2 upvotes to get it awarded automatically

Destructible Watermelon

1:34 AM

hi!

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

hello

Pavel

yo

Destructible Watermelon

let's see if I can add another language to this thing now

Anonymous

sigh

Destructible Watermelon

probably not though

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

1:37 AM

@Mego what?

he just said hi and 2 people responded

Pavel

sigh?

Anonymous

9

A: Let's talk about chat again

The Nineteenth Byte can be a place for both serious and casual conversations. I imagine it as a sort of virtual "water cooler" environment. Some people gather to chat about the site. Some people gather to have more casual conversations. That's perfectly fine. What's not fine is when people disru...

Anonymous

Regardless of whether or not you think "hi!" is noise, it definitely doesn't need to be on the starboard.

Destructible Watermelon

wait somebody starred it

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

@Mego can you be more clear about what you mean by "sigh" then?

it arguably adds less to the conversation then the "hi" or the star on that message

Destructible Watermelon

1:40 AM

hey, what if I add ><> to the quine like challenge answer

now to learn ><>

Pavel

It's like the guy who yells "shut up!" at the top of his voice in a movie theater to someone whispering something to his friend.

7

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

starred because that's funny, not (predominantly) because I agree with that

Destructible Watermelon

starring random posts is for the sandbox, not here

or maybe that starbait room or trash

Downgoat

Does this macro look right?:

#define BOILERPLATE                                                            \
    NumberObject *self = UNWRAP(info.Holder());                                \
    long double value;                                                         \
    if (info[0]->IsNumber())                                                   \
        value = info[0]->NumberValue();                                        \
    else                                                                       \
        value = UNWRAP(info[0]->ToObject())->value;                            \

It's not highlighting correctly which is making me suspicous

Conor O'Brien

it's because it's in a #define statement...

Downgoat

1:46 AM

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

IMO, a large part of the problem right now is the "eagerness" to slam/hate/nuke from orbit all noise. I don't agree with noise, but I don't think there's really anything wrong with saying "hi" and then 2 responses of "hello/hi" when chat is pretty slow anyway.

5

@Downgoat what editor is that

Downgoat

C9 w/ monokai

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

ah

looked like atom for a moment

Downgoat

yeah, both are menlo IIRC

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

though for the record, I think that was a stupid message to star ('hi!')

H Walters

1:48 AM

@Downgoat Look at the line it's not highlighting... back up one line... that line does not end in a backslash because there's whitespace after the backslash

Downgoat

oh my god thank you

H Walters

No way I could tell from your editor but I saw it in the paste

Downgoat

WTF/10, hardest to find bug

H Walters

(And suspected that was the issue)

np

Qwerp-Derp

How to have Javascript/Processing polyglot

Where Javascript prints "Javascript" and Processing prints "Processing"

Destructible Watermelon

1:51 AM

comments probably

Doorknob

@Downgoat Not if you have your editor highlight or otherwise indicate the existence of trailing whitespace.

Pavel

But they both use //, don't they?

Downgoat

@Qwerp-Derp Hint: void absolutelyanything in JavaScript is undefined while in Processing it can be used to define a function

Qwerp-Derp

@Pavel and /**/

Downgoat

@Doorknob that seems like good idea

Pavel

1:51 AM

@Doorknob while you're here, can you clear the star on 'hi!'?

Qwerp-Derp

void hello{println("Hello, World!");}

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

@Pavel nah, it's not really needed

Qwerp-Derp

@Downgoat Am I on the right track?

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

yeah, it's dumb, but it's not really that big of a deal

esp. when it's 1 star on 1 message

that's what I mean, I think we're partially overreacting

Pavel

I mean, I wouldn't ping a mod for that, but since we know Doorknob's in chat right now anyway...

Downgoat

1:54 AM

@Qwerp-Derp My Processing is rusty but something along the lines of:

void alert()
{ console.log("JavaScript") }
try { alert() } catch(e) { println("Processing") }

where alert is any JS built-in function

alert() will throw runtime error about console.log in processing

Won't work if processing checks at compile-time

Pavel

Won't it just not compile?

Downgoat

well shit

Pavel

Java checks at compile-time.

Downgoat

Wait does processing use JVM?

Destructible Watermelon

doesn't javascript have undefined for undeclared variables?

don't they have an exec command

or eval

is g okay for a ><> quinelike program?

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