[ablob]

funny enough,

  2>&1 >/dev/null cat file

appears to yield the same output. So i wonder where the not "order-independent" chimes in.

[pdpi]

`2>&1` redirects FD2 to the current contents of FD1 (stdout), then `> /dev/null` redirects FD1 to /dev/null. That results in your errors going into stdout, and discarding regular output altogether:

    0: stdin  -> stdin  -> stdin
    1: stdout -> stdout -> /dev/null
    2: stderr -> stdout -> stdout

When you flip the order, `> /dev/null 2>&1` moves FD1 to /dev/null first, and then FD2 to the contents FD1 (/dev/null again), so you discard both errors and standard output:

    0: stdin  -> stdin     -> stdin
    1: stdout -> /dev/null -> /dev/null
    2: stderr -> stderr    -> /dev/null

In your example, `cat file` is unlikely to produce any errors, which is why you're not seeing a difference.

[ButlerianJihad]

You're absolutely wrong!

It does not yield the "same output", and here is why: if you cause your command to actually produce output on stderr (fd 2) it will appear as terminal output, because you have actually succeeded in "redirecting" stderr to wherever stdout (fd 1) was pointing initially.

[isityettime]

All of this depends on your specific shell and its parser. Fish doesn't let you put redirections at the beginning like that (though I wish it did), while GNU Bash does.

[ButlerianJihad]

fish is not POSIX-compatible, and not Bourne-compatible, so I don't see how that really matters at all. I used the rc shell from plan9 for quite a while, and I wouldn't expect its syntax rules to match, either!

[isityettime]

It's worth noting because the redirections and their syntax are nonetheless otherwise shared. I don't think POSIX compatibility for shells is that important tbf. The heart of a Unix shell has little to do with POSIX syntax.

[ButlerianJihad]

I would say that if you can't use the same redirection syntax as Bourne/Bash, then the syntax rules aren't "shared".

And that is because fish isn't POSIX-compliant. It's like when translating languages, some words are cognate, but some are "false friends" and while they look the same, they don't mean the same thing. So when using redirections in fish, the rules may be similar up to a point, but only up to a point.