Editing Standard streams (section)

{{Short description|Connected input and output streams for computer programs}}
{{About|standard I/O file descriptors|System V streams|STREAMS}}
In [[computer programming]], '''standard streams''' are preconnected input and output [[communication channel]]s<ref>D. M. Ritchie, [https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/classes/fa01/cse221/papers/ritchie-stream-io-belllabs84.pdf "A Stream Input-Output System"], AT&T Bell Laboratories Technical Journal, 68(8), October 1984.</ref> between a computer program and its environment when it begins execution. The three [[input/output]] (I/O) connections are called '''standard input''' ('''stdin'''), '''standard output''' ('''stdout''') and '''standard error''' ('''stderr'''). Originally I/O happened via a physically connected [[system console]] (input via keyboard, output via monitor), but standard streams abstract this. When a command is executed via an interactive [[Shell (computing)|shell]], the streams are typically connected to the [[text terminal]] on which the shell is running, but can be changed with [[Redirection (computing)|redirection]] or a [[Pipeline (Unix)|pipeline]]. More generally, a [[child process]] inherits the standard streams of its [[parent process]].