Can't I get a /dev/one?

[William M. Quarles]

Jim Higson wrote:
> On Wednesday 14 July 2004 10:23, Jim Higson wrote:
> 
>>On Wednesday 14 July 2004 05:34, William M. Quarles wrote:
>>
>>>Jim Higson wrote:
>>>
>>>>On Wednesday 14 July 2004 00:02, William M. Quarles wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Okay, so there is a /dev/zero.  Shouldn't there be a /dev/one, too?  Is
>>>>>there any way that I can fill a file or device full of ones?
>>>>
>>>>Btw, why do you want this?
>>>
>>>I guess that I should have said that from the beginning, so that I
>>>wouldn't have to write this as frequently.
>>>
>>>I'm trying to fill a hard drive with all ones.  I know how to fill it
>>>with all zeros:
>>
>>Well, yes - I got that bit. Actually, what I really wanted to know is why
>>you would want to do that.

Physics experiment.

>>If I knew why I could advise. For example if you are trying to securely
>>erase the contents of the drive there's a program called shread, in the GNU
>>coreutils (so you *will* have it!)
>>
>>try:
>>man shread
>>
>>or just go ahead:
>>shread /dev/hda
>>
> 
> Oops, should be 'shred'.

That might work.

> What do you mean by "all ones" - all binary ones (which is filling it with 
> byte 255) or ones on the byte or word level?

Binary ones.

Thanks a bunch,
William