On Thu, Jan 04, 2024 at 02:15:17PM -0500, Steven Rostedt wrote: > On Thu, 4 Jan 2024 18:25:02 +0000 > Al Viro <viro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > Unfortunately, the terms are clumsy as hell - POSIX ends up with > > "file descriptor" (for numbers) vs. "file description" (for IO > > channels), which is hard to distinguish when reading and just > > as hard to distinguish when listening. "Opened file" (as IO > > channel) vs. "file on disc" (as collection of data that might > > be accessed via said channels) distinction on top of that also > > doesn't help, to put it mildly. It's many decades too late to > > do anything about, unfortunately. Pity the UNIX 101 students... ;-/ > > Just so I understand this correctly. > > "file descriptor" - is just what maps to a specific inode. No -- file descriptor is a number in fdtable that maps to a struct file. > "file description" - is how the file is accessed (position in the file and > flags associated to how it was opened) file description is posix's awful name for struct file.
