On Mon, Aug 24, 2020 at 10:43:26AM -0400, fsmithred via Dng wrote:
> On 8/24/20 10:32 AM, Hendrik Boom wrote:
> >
> > Mu memory may be failing ne after almost half a century, but I recall
> > that the original Unix, way back in the early 70's,
> > even directories could be read as files. Not that there was
> > some hidden trickery making them into files; instead there were
> > conventions how files could be treated as directories.
> >
>
> I had to look up Plan 9, and in doing so, I found that "Everything is a
> file" has its own wikipedia page. It says, "But file descriptors are also
> created for things like anonymous pipes and network sockets via different
> methods. Therefore a more accurate description of this feature is
> Everything is a file descriptor."
>
> And the page for File descriptor says, "In Unix-like systems, file
> descriptors can refer to any Unix file type named in a file system. As
> well as regular files, this includes directories, block and character
> devices (also called "special files")"

So if we were to use fd as short for file-or-directory it could better
be short for file descriptor.

-- hendrik