On 24/08/2020 18:15, Hendrik Boom wrote:
> 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.

glibc API extensively uses fd to mean file descriptor.
That is a data file, not a metadata directory, only the OS has business in messing with directories (filesystem metadata) not applications executed by Users other than creating\deleting and setting permissions.

refer to:
'man 3 fdopen'
'man 2 open' (also covers 'dirfd')


>
> -- hendrik
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