Illustrated Redirection Tutorial
Re: ">file 2>&1" vs. "2>&1 >file"I tend to think "a>&b" as an assignment to a stream: stream[a]=stream[b]. This way it's easier to understand why the ordering matters:    >file 2>&1 means stream[1]=file; stream[2]=stream[1];
    2>&1 >file means stream[2]=stream[1]; stream[1]=file;