GATE CS 1997 Q3.7 — Inter-process Communication

I/O redirection is a mechanism in operating systems (such as Unix/Linux shells) that redirects the standard input, standard output, or standard error streams of a program to or from files or devices, instead of the default terminal.

• Option A is incorrect: Changing the name of a file is a file management operation (like mv or rename), which is unrelated to I/O redirection.
• Option B is correct: Input redirection (typically represented by the < operator) allows an existing file to be used as the standard input for a program. For example, command < input.txt feeds the contents of input.txt into the program as standard input.
• Option C is incorrect: Connecting the output of one program to the input of another is specifically called piping (using the | operator). While related to stream redirection, it specifically connects processes rather than redirecting I/O to/from files.