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Book Overview & Buying
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Table Of Contents
Practical System Programming for Rust Developers
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In this section, we will look at the terminology and basic mechanisms associated with managing file system resources at the operating system level. We will use Linux/Unix as an example, but similar concepts apply to other operating systems.
So, what do you think a file is?
A file is just a set of bytes. A byte represents a unit of information—it can be a number, text, video, audio, image, or any other such digital content. The bytes are organized in a linear array called a byte stream. There is no other expectation in terms of the structure or contents of a file, as far as the operating system is concerned. It is the user application that does the interpretation of the file and its contents.
A user application is a program that is not a part of the operating system kernel. An example of a user application is an image viewer that interprets the bytes of data as an image. Since files are resources that are managed by...