The line most likely should have read:
echo '/dev/zip /mnt/zip vfat noauto,user 0 0' \
>>/etc/fstab

In this case, the "\" is a line continuation character.

Jay

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Callum Lerwick [mailto:lerwick at tcfreenet.org]
> Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2000 12:58 AM
> To: tclug-list at mn-linux.org
> Subject: [TCLUG] Re: [TCLUG:23808] D'oh! wiped out file....
> 
> 
> > # echo '/dev/zip /mnt/zip vfat noauto,user 0 0' \>>/etc/fstab
> > 
> > When I did a more on it to see if the changes took place, I 
> noticed that
> > it whacked the original lines in there for the other devices.
> 
> And I bet I know why. Why is there a slash before >> ? The slash would
> have escaped the first > from the shell, sending it on the 
> command line
> to echo. The shell then sees just one >, which means wipe out the
> contents of the file with whats being piped. Two >> means to append to
> the end...
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