'\" te
.\"  Copyright 1989 AT&T  Copyright (c) 1990, Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
.\" The contents of this file are subject to the terms of the Common Development and Distribution License (the "License").  You may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
.\" You can obtain a copy of the license at usr/src/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE or http://www.opensolaris.org/os/licensing.  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.
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.TH ZERO 4D "Jul 3, 1990"
.SH NAME
zero \- source of zeroes
.SH DESCRIPTION
.sp
.LP
A zero special file is a source of zeroed unnamed memory.
.sp
.LP
Reads from a zero special file always return a buffer full of zeroes. The file
is of infinite length.
.sp
.LP
Writes to a zero special file are always successful, but the data written is
ignored.
.sp
.LP
Mapping a zero special file creates a zero-initialized unnamed memory object of
a length equal to the length of the mapping and rounded up to the nearest page
size as returned by \fBsysconf\fR. Multiple processes can share such a zero
special file object provided a common ancestor mapped the object
\fBMAP_SHARED\fR.
.SH FILES
.sp
.ne 2
.na
\fB\fB/dev/zero\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 13n

.RE

.SH SEE ALSO
.sp
.LP
.BR fork (2),
.BR mmap (2),
.BR sysconf (3C)