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:
“My business is stanching blood and feeding fainting men; my post the open field between the bullet and the hospital. I sometimes discuss the application of a compress or a wisp of hay under a broken limb, but not the bearing and merits of a political movement. I make gruel—not speeches; I write letters home for wounded soldiers, not political addresses.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)
“The application requisite to the duties of the office I hold [governor of Virginia] is so excessive, and the execution of them after all so imperfect, that I have determined to retire from it at the close of the present campaign.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“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)