3 ms·

Do not use this without knowing what it does. http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/1207/classic-bash-fork-bomb.-do-not-use http://www.commandlinefu.com/co

• Groxx 16y ago
  Wow, that's nuts. Explanation from a user on the site: >the ':()' shows that we're making a new function named ':'. Everything inside the '{}' is the function body, it makes two recursive calls to the ':' function and puts them into the background with the '&' so that execution continues instead of waiting for them to exit. Then it ends that command with the ';' and executes the function ':'. That makes 2 calls to ':' which each make 2 calls, and so on until ulimit or your hardware capabilities stop it. Comment by stuart 91 weeks and 2 days ago