glossary.9 (2010 09)

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glossary(9) glossary(9)

NAME

glossary - description of common HP-UX terms

DESCRIPTION

HP-UX and other UNIX-like systems use a specialized vocabulary in which certain words and terms have

very speciﬁc meanings. This glossary is intended as an aid in promoting exactness in use of these special-

ized terms whose meanings sometimes differ from those that might be encountered in other environ-

ments. References to other HP-UX documentation are included as appropriate.

Entities in italics with a following parenthesized roman number (sometimes with a capital letter), such as

sh(1), wait(2), or fopen (3S) refer to entries in the other sections of this manual. Items in bold face refer

to other entries in this glossary. Items in

computer font (bold face in the online manpages) are

literals, such as ﬁle names and environment variables. Any italicized manual names refer to separate

manuals that are either included with your system or available separately.

The deﬁnitions speciﬁcally reﬂect the HP-UX operating system, although some terms and deﬁnitions are

also derived from those in the emerging IEEE POSIX standards and the X/Open Portability Guide.

Differences in wording exist to more speciﬁcally reﬂect the characteristics of the HP-UX system.

GLOSSARY ENTRIES

. (dot)

A special ﬁle name that refers to the current directory. It can be used alone or at the beginning of a

directory path name. See also path name resolution. The dot also functions as a special command in

the POSIX, Bourne, and Korn shells, and has special meaning in text editors and formatters, in parsing

regular expressions and in designating ﬁle names.

.. (dot-dot)

A special ﬁle name that refers to the parent directory. If it begins a path name, dot-dot refers to the

parent of the current directory. If it occurs in a path name, dot-dot refers to the parent directory of the

directory preceding dot-dot in the path name string. As a special case, dot-dot refers to the current

directory in any directory that has no parent (most often, the root directory). See also path name

resolution.

.o (dot-oh)

The sufﬁx customarily given to a relocatable object ﬁle. The term dot-oh ﬁle is sometimes used to refer

to a relocatable object ﬁle. The format of such ﬁles is sometimes called dot-oh format. See a.out (4).

a.out

The name customarily given to an executable object code ﬁle on HP-UX. The format is machine-

dependent, and is described in a.out (4) for each implementation. Object code that is not yet linked has

the same format, but is referred to as a .o (dot-oh) ﬁle. a.out is also the default output ﬁle name used

by the linker, ld(1).

absolute path name

A path name beginning with a slash (

/). It indicates that the ﬁle’s location is given relative to the root

directory (/), and that the search begins there.

access

The process of obtaining data from or placing data in storage, or the right to use system resources. Acces-

sibility is governed by three process characteristics: the effective user ID, the effective group ID, and the

group access list. The access (2) system call determines accessibility of a ﬁle according to the bit pattern

contained in its amode parameter, which is constructed to read, write, execute or check the existence of a

ﬁle. The access (2) system call uses the real user ID instead of the effective user ID and the real

group ID instead of the effective group ID.

access groups

The group access list is a set of supplementary group IDs used in determining resource accessibility.

Access checks are performed as described below in ﬁle access permissions.

access mode

An access mode is a form of access permitted to a ﬁle. Each implementation provides separate read,

write, and execute/search access modes.

HP-UX 11i Version 3: September 2010 − 1 − Hewlett-Packard Company 1

Summary of content (26 pages)

PAGE 1
glossary(9) glossary(9) NAME glossary - description of common HP-UX terms DESCRIPTION HP-UX and other UNIX-like systems use a specialized vocabulary in which certain words and terms have very specific meanings. This glossary is intended as an aid in promoting exactness in use of these specialized terms whose meanings sometimes differ from those that might be encountered in other environments. References to other HP-UX documentation are included as appropriate.
PAGE 2
glossary(9) glossary(9) address A number used in information storage or retrieval to specify and identify memory location. An address is used to mark, direct, indicate destination, instruct or otherwise communicate with computer elements. In mail, address is a data structure whose format can be recognized by all elements involved in transmitting information.
PAGE 3
glossary(9) glossary(9) file). Block special files can be mounted. A block special file provides access to the device where hardware characteristics of the device are not visible. boot, boot-up The process of loading, initializing, and running an operating system. boot area A portion of a mass storage medium on which the volume header and a "bootstrap" program used in booting the operating system reside. The boot area is reserved exclusively for use by HP-UX.
PAGE 4
glossary(9) glossary(9) collation sequence The ordering sequence applied to collating elements when they are sorted. To accommodate native languages, collation sequence can be thought of as the relative order of collating elements as set by the current value of the LANG environment variable. Characters can be omitted from the collation sequence, or two or more collating elements can be given the same relative order (see string (3C)). A command A directive to perform a particular task.
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glossary(9) glossary(9) current directory See working directory. current working directory See working directory. daemon A process which runs in the background, and which is usually immune to termination instructions from a terminal. Its purpose is to perform various scheduling, clean-up, and maintenance jobs. lpsched (1M) is an example of a daemon. It exists to perform these functions for line printer jobs queued by lp (1).
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glossary(9) glossary(9) dot See . (dot). dot-dot See .. (dot-dot). dot-oh See .o (dot-oh). dot-oh file See .o (dot-oh). dot-oh format See .o (dot-oh). A dA downshifting The conversion of an uppercase character to its lowercase representation. dynamic loader A routine invoked at process startup time that loads shared libraries into a process’s address space.
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glossary(9) glossary(9) executing /etc/profile, $HOME/.profile, or $HOME/.login. EOF See end-of-file. Epoch The time period beginning at 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on January 1, 1970. Increments quantify the amount of time elapsed from the Epoch to the referenced time. Leap seconds, which occur at irregular intervals, are not reflected in the count of seconds between the Epoch and the referenced time. (Fourteen leap seconds occurred in the years 1970 through 1988.
PAGE 8
glossary(9) glossary(9) A file descriptor is obtained through system calls such as creat (2), fcntl (2), open (2), pipe (2), or dup(2). The file descriptor is used as an argument by calls such as read (2), write (2), ioctl (2), and close (2). The value of a file descriptor has a range from 0 to one less than the system-defined maximum. The system-defined maximum is the value NOFILE in .
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glossary(9) glossary(9) file system A collection of files and supporting data structures residing on a mass storage volume. A file system provides a name space for file serial numbers referring to those files. Refer to the System Administrator manuals supplied with your system for details concerning file system implementation and maintenance. file times update Each file has three associated time values that are updated when file data is accessed or modified, or when the file status is changed.
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glossary(9) glossary(9) hierarchical directory A directory (or file system) structure in which each directory can contain other directories as well as files. home directory The directory name given by the value of the environment variable HOME. When you first log in, login (1) automatically sets HOME to your login directory. You can change its value at any time. This is usually done in the .profile file contained in your login directory.
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glossary(9) glossary(9) job control Job control allows users to selectively stop (suspend) execution of processes and continue (resume) their execution at a later time. The user employs this facility via the interactive interface jointly supplied by the system terminal driver and certain shells (see sh(1)). The terminal driver recognizes a user-defined "suspend character", which causes the current foreground process group to stop and the user’s job control shell to resume.
PAGE 12
glossary(9) glossary(9) link count The number of directory entries that refer to a particular file. linker A program that combines one or more object programs into one program, searches libraries to resolve user program references, and builds an executable file in a.out format. This executable file is ready to be executed through the program loader, exec (2). The linker is invoked with the ld(1) command. The linker is often called a link editor.
PAGE 13
glossary(9) glossary(9) message queue identifier (msqid) A unique positive integer created by a msgget (2) system call. Each msqid has a message queue and a data structure associated with it.
PAGE 14
glossary(9) glossary(9) minor number A number that is an attribute of special files, specified during their creation and used whenever they are accessed, to enable I/O to or from specific devices. This number is passed to the device driver and is used to select which device in a family of devices is to be used, and possibly some operational modes. The exact format and meaning of the minor number depends both on the driver and on the addressing format (legacy or agile) being used.
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glossary(9) glossary(9) return/line-feed sequence sent by a terminal as a single newline character (but see tty (7) for full details) NLS See Native Language Support. NLSPATH An environment variable used to indicate the search path for message catalogs (see message catalog). node name A string of bytes which uniquely identifies the system in the local network. Unlike the host name, the node name cannot include domain names. It can be viewed and/or set with the uname(1) command.
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glossary(9) glossary(9) password A string of ASCII characters used to verify the identity of a user. Passwords can be associated with users and groups. If a user has a password, it is automatically encrypted and entered in the second field of that user’s line in the /etc/passwd file. A user can create or change his or her own password by using the passwd (1) command. path name A sequence of directory names separated by slashes, and ending with any file name.
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glossary(9) glossary(9) channeled directly into the standard input of the command on the right. portable file name character set The following set of graphical characters are portable across conforming implementations of IEEE Standard P1003.1: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 01234567890._The last three characters are the dot, underscore and hyphen characters, respectively. The hyphen should not be used as the first character of a portable file name.
PAGE 18
glossary(9) glossary(9) returned to the system, although some resources, such as the process ID are still in use. When another process executes a wait(), wait3(), or waitpid() function (see wait (2)) for an inactive process, the remaining resources are returned to the system. The last resource to be returned to the system is the process ID. At this time, the lifetime of the process ends.
PAGE 19
glossary(9) glossary(9) regular file A type of file that is a randomly accessible sequence of bytes, with no further structure imposed by the system. Its size can be extended. A regular file is also called an ordinary file. relative path name A path name that does not begin with a slash (/). It indicates that a file’s location is given relative to your current working directory, and that the search begins there (instead of at the root directory).
PAGE 20
glossary(9) glossary(9) SCCS are admin (1), cdc (1), delta (1), get (1), prs (1), rmdel (1), sact (1), sccsdiff(1), unget (1), val (1), and what (1). SCCS file An ordinary text file that has been modified so the Source Code Control System (SCCS) can be used with it. This modification is done automatically by the admin (1) command. See also delta. secondary prompt One or more characters that the shell prints on the display, indicating that more input is needed.
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glossary(9) glossary(9) Otherwise, the corresponding permissions are denied. semid See semaphore identifier. session Each process group is a member of a session. A process is considered to be a member of the session of which its process group is a member. A newly created process joins the session of its creator. A process can alter its session membership (see setsid (2)). A session can have multiple process groups (see setpgid (2)). session leader A process that has created a session (see setsid (2)).
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glossary(9) glossary(9) attached. shm_atime is the time of the last shmat operation, shm_dtime is the time of the last shmdt operation, and shm_ctime is the time of the last shmctl (2) operation that changed one of the members of the above structure. shared memory operation permissions In the shmop (2) and shmctl (2) system call descriptions, the permission required for an operation is indicated for each operation.
PAGE 23
glossary(9) glossary(9) solidus See slash. source code The fundamental high-level information (program) written in the syntax of a specified computer language. Object (machine-language) code is derived from source code. When dealing with an HP-UX shell command language, source code is input to the command language interpreter. The term shell script is synonymous with this meaning. When dealing with the C Language, source code is input to the cc(1) command.
PAGE 24
glossary(9) glossary(9) subdirectory A directory that is one or more levels lower in the file system hierarchy than a given directory. Sometimes called a subordinate directory. subordinate directory See subdirectory. Subset 1980 See CS/80. superblock A block on each file system’s mass storage medium which describes the file system. The contents of the superblock vary between implementations. Refer to the system administrator manuals supplied with your system for details.
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glossary(9) glossary(9) terminal affiliation The process by which a process group leader establishes an association between itself and a particular terminal. A terminal becomes affiliated with a process group leader (and subsequently all processes created by the process group leader, see terminal group) whenever the process group leader executes (either directly or indirectly) an open (2) or creat (2) system call to open a terminal.
PAGE 26
glossary(9) glossary(9) working directory Each process has associated with it the concept of a current working directory. For a shell, this appears as the directory in which you currently "reside". This is the directory in which relative path name (that is, a path name that does not begin with /) searches begin. It is sometimes referred to as the current directory, or the current working directory.