On Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 08:32:44PM +0200, Michael Kerrisk (man-pages) wrote: > So, can you *please* answer this question: what do you call (i.e., > what everyday technical language term do use for) the thing > that sits between a file descriptor and an i-node? > > (Please don't say 'struct file' -- that is not is an implementation > detail, and does not qualify as the kind of term that I could use > when documenting this feature in man pages.) At least in a few places, if you are going to use "file description", could you at least add a parenthetical comment: (commonly called a "struct file" by Linux kernel developers) Yes, it's an implementation detail, but it's one that's been around for over two decades, and IMHO highly unlikely to change in the future. So if you really want to use the POSIX terminology, it would probably be a good idea to also use the term of art which is in common use by the kernel developers, and I suspect has leaked out beyond that. I think it's actually a better and more functional name than what POSIX uses, so maybe the best compromise is to use both, to make sure there is no confusion. In particular, if we have text in the man pages where we have "file description" and "file descriptor" in the close proximity it would probably be good to add "(i.e., a struct file by Linux kernel developers)" just for clarity. Cheers, - Ted -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-fsdevel" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
