On 13Feb2013 16:03, Suvayu Ali fatkasuvayu+linux@gmail.com wrote: | I know about redirection, but was not aware that I could also open | sockets! Thanks a lot for the nice explanation, I'll read up more.
Unless bash has even more weirdness in it than I thought, the redirection is probably relying on a Linuxism to open a port via a Linux specific /dev entry. Plan 9 pioneered that mechanism. (That said, I know bash sometimes fakes up /dev/stdin etc for platform lacking them, so maybe it fakes /dev/tcp as well...)
| I think I'll end up using this solution as it seems the most portable.
To Linux alone, quite possibly.
Just a thought: why not just make your script fail gracefully it it can't connect? It would avoid all this "probing" that we're all discussing especially since the probing really amounts to "can I connect?" Your script will be trying that anyway, so why probe?
Cheers,