Application
Users generally know those stream as a medium by which text incoming from input device, and text outcoming to display are handled. As they are used for input and output devices, they generally contain text, a sequence of characters in a predetermined encoding, such as Latin-1 or UTF-8.
Those streams can also be chained the output of a program being then the input of another one. A well known example is the use of a pager such as more, which gives the user a way to control which part of the output stream appears on the display.
Although the dominant usage is for the standard streams to contain text, it is possible to use them to transfer arbitrary binary data.
Read more about this topic: Standard Streams
Famous quotes containing the word application:
“It is known that Whistler when asked how long it took him to paint one of his “nocturnes” answered: “All of my life.” With the same rigor he could have said that all of the centuries that preceded the moment when he painted were necessary. From that correct application of the law of causality it follows that the slightest event presupposes the inconceivable universe and, conversely, that the universe needs even the slightest of events.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“By an application of the theory of relativity to the taste of readers, to-day in Germany I am called a German man of science, and in England I am represented as a Swiss Jew. If I come to be regarded as a bête noire the descriptions will be reversed, and I shall become a Swiss Jew for the Germans and a German man of science for the English!”
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
“Great abilites are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any degree; only about as much as is used in the lowest kinds of poetry. Some penetration, accuracy, and colouring, will fit a man for the task, if he can give the application which is necessary.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)