What happens to a deleted file still subject to redirection on linux?

Solution 1:

If a program still has a file handle open, what I believe will happen is that the file continues to exist. It disappears from your directory listings and looks gone but until the last file handle is closed the file continues to grow.

This is why people will have huge files on the filesystem and get errors, find an errant file that is huge, delete it, and still have huge disk space listings but cannot find the file anymore. It's there. Just not quite visible. Use lsof to find the application holding the file handle and kill/close the application then the space is reclaimed.