title: Simply forking and redirecting the output of a command to /dev/null
body: <p>I frequently execute from a shell (in my case Bash) commands that I want to fork immediately and whose output I want to ignore. So frequently in fact that I created a script (<code>silent</code>) to do it:</p>
  
  <pre><code>#!/bin/bash
  $@ &amp;&gt; /dev/null &amp;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I can then run, e.g.</p>
  
  <pre><code>silent inkscape myfile.svg
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and my terminal will not be polluted by the debug output of the process I just forked.</p>
  
  <p>I have two questions:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>Is there an "official" way of doing this?, i.e. something shorter but equivalent to <code>&amp;&gt; /dev/null &amp;</code> ?</p></li>
  <li><p>If not, is there a way I can make tab-completion work after my <code>silent</code> command as if it weren't there ? To give an example, after I've typed <code>silent inksc</code>, I'd like bash to auto-complete my command to <code>silent inkscape</code> when I press <code>[tab]</code>.</p></li>
  </ol>