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Bluesky post by user @magnusbeefcastle.bsky.social that reads,
I INSTALLED “LINUX”. BECAUSE WINDOWS IS FOR MEN WHO ASK PERMISSION TO EXIST. I CRUSHED THE INSTALLER WITH MY BARE HANDS AND NOW THE TERMINAL CALLS ME “SIR” BUT MY KERNEL KEEPS PANICKING. WHAT COMMAND MAKES THE COMPUTER SUBMIT COMPLETELY? I REFUSE TO GOOGLE
~Yes, all of this user’s posts are like this.~
This one?
:() { # define a function named ":". : # run the function named ":" | : # pass the output to the function named ":" & # run this line in the background. }; # end of definition : # call the function ":".in case anyone was curious.
If you replace : with “loop” it becomes pretty clear. The only ‘weird’ thing is using punctuation as a function name.
it’s not just looping; every instance starts two instances of itself waiting for input. it’s basically doing
async def fork(): f = fork() await fork(await f)…except python doesn’t start the second call until its arguments are evaluated, while shell does.
Yeah, “loop” was a poor choice of keywords. My point was that replacing : with a more plain identifier helps it make sense. :)
I think it’s meant to be confusing. If you’re unfamiliar with code, you’ll likely glaze over the random string of symbols and assume it’s like broken HTML or JSON or something.
Hell even if you are a programmer, I think most programmers assume you can’t use a colon in a variable or function name, much less just a colon.
Definitely. But it’s worth expending some skull meat to understand what’s going on. :)
In some of my university classes I liked to use Hiragana characters (from Japanese) for variables and function names, just to be a jerk.
learning that the shell
[[is a function and]]is an argument definitely did something to my brain.Yep!