Redirection

[Thomas Kwong]

In the final exam ( Unix and C ) that I just take, one UNIX
problem is like this:

%cat myfile
word1 word2 word3
word4 word5
word6
%wc myfile
     3     6    36   myfile

%wc myfile > myfile
%cat myfile
     0     0     0   myfile

How come MYFILE becomes that?

I think it should be like:
     3     6    36   myfile
because output of wc myfile is redirected to myfile.

Can anybody tell me why?

Thomas Kwong.

------------------------------ 6600tom at ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu