• A file is a container for data.
• In Unix, it is a stream of bytes.
• In a Unix file system, it consists of one or more name entries in directories, an inode block and some data blocks. The file has a unique (within file system) inode number. There are one or more name and inode number pairs in various directory data blocks (all on the same file system). An inode (index node) consists of information for the file such as file type, mode, owner, group, size and times, together with indices to the data blocks. For details, see File I/O and Files and Directories.

Last update: 2000 December 29