Introducing UNIX Files
You already know a lot about UNIX files from Chapter 3, “UNIX Directories and Pathnames.” All UNIX files are organized into a tree-structured directory system. You can then access any file by using an absolute or a relative pathname.
A filename can contain any letters, digits, or punctuation. Old UNIX systems previously limited filenames to 14 characters, but modem UNIX systems allow them to be as long as several hundred characters.
The most common type of file under UNIX is called a regular file. All programs (whether in source code or compiled binary), data files, documents, text files, system utilities, and system configuration tables are regular files. Application languages such as COBOL or BASIC can create sequential ...
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