Everything Is A File
   HOME
*





Everything Is A File
Everything is a file is an idea that Unix, and its derivatives handle input/output to and from resources such as documents, hard-drives, modems, keyboards, printers and even some inter-process and network communications as simple streams of bytes exposed through the filesystem name space. Exceptions include shared memory, semaphores, datagram sockets, symbolic links, directories (which are read-only are not accessed as a byte-stream), processes and threads. The advantage of this approach is that the same set of tools, utilities and APIs can be used on a wide range of resources. There are a number of file types. When a file is opened, a file descriptor is created. The file path becomes the addressing system and the file descriptor becomes the byte stream I/O interface. But file descriptors are also created for things like anonymous pipes and network sockets. Therefore, a more accurate description of this feature is ''Everything is a file descriptor''. Additionally, a range of ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and others. Initially intended for use inside the Bell System, AT&T licensed Unix to outside parties in the late 1970s, leading to a variety of both academic and commercial Unix variants from vendors including University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley Software Distribution, BSD), Microsoft (Xenix), Sun Microsystems (SunOS/Solaris (operating system), Solaris), Hewlett-Packard, HP/Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HPE (HP-UX), and IBM (IBM AIX, AIX). In the early 1990s, AT&T sold its rights in Unix to Novell, which then sold the UNIX trademark to The Open Group, an industry consortium founded in 1996. The Open Group allows the use of the mark for certified operating systems that comply with the Single UNIX Specification (SUS). Unix systems are chara ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

File System
In computing, file system or filesystem (often abbreviated to fs) is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one large body of data with no way to tell where one piece of data stopped and the next began, or where any piece of data was located when it was time to retrieve it. By separating the data into pieces and giving each piece a name, the data are easily isolated and identified. Taking its name from the way a paper-based data management system is named, each group of data is called a "file". The structure and logic rules used to manage the groups of data and their names is called a "file system." There are many kinds of file systems, each with unique structure and logic, properties of speed, flexibility, security, size and more. Some file systems have been designed to be used for specific applications. For example, the ISO 9660 file system is designe ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Unix Architecture
A Unix architecture is a computer operating system system architecture that embodies the Unix philosophy. It may adhere to standards such as the Single UNIX Specification (SUS) or similar POSIX IEEE standard. No single published standard describes all Unix architecture computer operating systems — this is in part a legacy of the Unix wars. Description There are many systems which are Unix-like in their architecture. Notable among these are the Linux distributions. The distinctions between Unix and Unix-like systems have been the subject of heated legal battles, and the holders of the UNIX brand, The Open Group, object to "Unix-like" and similar terms. For distinctions between SUS branded UNIX architectures and other similar architectures, see Unix-like. Kernel A Unix kernel — the core or key components of the operating system — consists of many kernel subsystems like process management, scheduling, file management, device management, network management, memory ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Synthetic File System
In computer science, a synthetic file system or a pseudo file system is a hierarchical interface to non-file objects that appear as if they were regular files in the tree of a disk-based or long-term-storage file system. These non-file objects may be accessed with the same system calls or utility programs as regular files and directory (computing), directories. The common term for both regular files and the non-file objects is ''node''. The benefit of synthetic file systems is that well-known file system semantics can be reused for a universal and easily implementable approach to interprocess communication. Clients can use such a file system to perform simple file operations on its nodes and do not have to implement complex message passing, message encoding and passing methods and other aspects of protocol engineering. For most operations, common file utilities can be used, so even script (computing), scripting is quite easy. This is commonly known as everything is a file and is ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Device File
In Unix-like operating systems, a device file or special file is an interface to a device driver that appears in a file system as if it were an ordinary file. There are also special files in DOS, OS/2, and Windows. These special files allow an application program to interact with a device by using its device driver via standard input/output system calls. Using standard system calls simplifies many programming tasks, and leads to consistent user-space I/O mechanisms regardless of device features and functions. Overview Device files usually provide simple interfaces to standard devices (such as printers and serial ports), but can also be used to access specific unique resources on those devices, such as disk partitions. Additionally, device files are useful for accessing system resources that have no connection with any actual device, such as data sinks and random number generators. There are two general kinds of device files in Unix-like operating systems, known as ''characte ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Android (operating System)
Android is a mobile operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software, designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android is developed by a consortium of developers known as the Open Handset Alliance and commercially sponsored by Google. It was unveiled in November 2007, with the first commercial Android device, the HTC Dream, being launched in September 2008. Most versions of Android are proprietary. The core components are taken from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), which is free and open-source software (FOSS) primarily licensed under the Apache License. When Android is installed on devices, the ability to modify the otherwise free and open-source software is usually restricted, either by not providing the corresponding source code or by preventing reinstallation through technical measures, thus rendering the installed version proprietary. Most Android devices ship with additional ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


POSIX
The Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) is a family of standards specified by the IEEE Computer Society for maintaining compatibility between operating systems. POSIX defines both the system- and user-level application programming interfaces (APIs), along with command line shells and utility interfaces, for software compatibility (portability) with variants of Unix and other operating systems. POSIX is also a trademark of the IEEE. POSIX is intended to be used by both application and system developers. Name Originally, the name "POSIX" referred to IEEE Std 1003.1-1988, released in 1988. The family of POSIX standards is formally designated as IEEE 1003 and the ISO/IEC standard number is ISO/IEC 9945. The standards emerged from a project that began in 1984 building on work from related activity in the ''/usr/group'' association. Richard Stallman suggested the name ''POSIX'' (pronounced as ''pahz-icks,'' as in ''positive'', not as ''poh-six'') to the IEEE instead of former ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which includes the kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name "GNU/Linux" to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy. Popular Linux distributions include Debian, Fedora Linux, and Ubuntu, the latter of which itself consists of many different distributions and modifications, including Lubuntu and Xubuntu. Commercial distributions include Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise. Desktop Linux distributions include a windowing system such as X11 or Wayland, and a desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE Plasma. Distributions intended for ser ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Embedded Systems
An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is ''embedded'' as part of a complete device often including electrical or electronic hardware and mechanical parts. Because an embedded system typically controls physical operations of the machine that it is embedded within, it often has real-time computing constraints. Embedded systems control many devices in common use today. , it was estimated that ninety-eight percent of all microprocessors manufactured were used in embedded systems. Modern embedded systems are often based on microcontrollers (i.e. microprocessors with integrated memory and peripheral interfaces), but ordinary microprocessors (using external chips for memory and peripheral interface circuits) are also common, especially in more complex systems. In either case, the processor(s) used m ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




BusyBox
BusyBox is a software suite that provides several Unix utilities in a single executable file. It runs in a variety of POSIX environments such as Linux, Android, and FreeBSD, although many of the tools it provides are designed to work with interfaces provided by the Linux kernel. It was specifically created for embedded operating systems with very limited resources. The authors dubbed it "The Swiss Army knife of Embedded Linux", as the single executable replaces basic functions of more than 300 common commands. It is released as free software under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2, after controversially deciding not to move to version 3. History Origins Originally written by Bruce Perens in 1995 and declared complete for his intended usage in 1996, BusyBox initially aimed to put a complete bootable system on a single floppy disk that would serve both as a rescue disk and as an installer for the Debian distribution. Since that time, it has been extended ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Filter (Unix)
A filter is a computer program or subroutine to process a stream, producing another stream. While a single filter can be used individually, they are frequently strung together to form a pipeline. Some operating systems such as Unix are rich with filter programs. Windows 7 and later are also rich with filters, as they include Windows PowerShell. In comparison, however, few filters are built into cmd.exe (the original command-line interface of Windows), most of which have significant enhancements relative to the similar filter commands that were available in MS-DOS. OS X includes filters from its underlying Unix base but also has Automator, which allows filters (known as "Actions") to be strung together to form a pipeline. Unix In Unix and Unix-like operating systems, a filter is a program that gets most of its data from its standard input (the main input stream) and writes its main results to its standard output (the main output stream). Auxiliary input may come from command li ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


List Of Unix Commands
This is a list of Unix commands as specified by IEEE Std 1003.1-2008, which is part of the Single UNIX Specification (SUS). These commands can be found on Unix operating systems and most Unix-like operating systems. List See also * List of GNU Core Utilities commands * List of GNOME applications * List of GNU packages * List of KDE applications * List of Unix daemons * List of web browsers for Unix and Unix-like operating systems * Unix philosophy The Unix philosophy, originated by Ken Thompson, is a set of cultural norms and philosophical approaches to minimalist, modular software development. It is based on the experience of leading developers of the Unix operating system. Early Unix de ... * Footnotes External links IEEE Std 1003.1,2004 specificationsIEEE Std 1003.1,2008 specifications– configurable list of equivalent programs for *nix systems. – explains the names of many Unix commands. {{Unix commands Unix programs System administration ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]