Editing Standard streams (section)

=== 1970s: C and Unix ===
In the [[C programming language]], the standard input, output, and error streams are attached to the existing Unix file descriptors 0, 1 and 2 respectively.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://linux.die.net/man/3/stdin|title = Stdin(3): Standard I/O streams - Linux man page |website=die.net |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230608111413/https://linux.die.net/man/3/stdin |archive-date= Jun 8, 2023 }}</ref> In a [[POSIX]] environment the ''<[[unistd.h]]>'' definitions ''STDIN_FILENO'', ''STDOUT_FILENO'' or ''STDERR_FILENO'' should be used instead rather than [[Magic number (programming)|magic numbers]].   File pointers ''stdin'', ''stdout'', and ''stderr'' are also provided.

[[Ken Thompson]] (designer and implementer of the original Unix operating system) modified [[sort (Unix)|sort]] in [[Version 5 Unix]] to accept "-" as representing standard input, which spread to other utilities and became a part of the operating system as a [[special file]] in [[Version 8 Unix|Version 8]]. Diagnostics were part of standard output through [[Version 6 Unix|Version 6]], after which [[Dennis M. Ritchie]] created the concept of standard error.<ref name="reader">{{cite tech report |first1=M. D. |last1=McIlroy |author-link1=Doug McIlroy |year=1987 |url=http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/reader.pdf |title=A Research Unix reader: annotated excerpts from the Programmer's Manual, 1971–1986 |series=CSTR |number=139 |institution=Bell Labs |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231215143742/https://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/reader.pdf |archive-date= Dec 15, 2023 }}</ref>