Guardian Programmer's Guide

Glossary
Guardian Programmer’s Guide — 421922-014
Glossary - 9
file code
file code. An integer value assigned to a file for application-dependent purposes, typically
identifying the kind of information the file contains.
file control block (FCB). (1) A data structure automatically created and managed by the file
system that contains a collection of information about a given file. (2) A data structure
on the user’s data stack used by SIO to access SIO files. These FCBs contain
information in addition to the information kept in the FCB automatically created and
managed by the file system.
file description. See open system.
file identifier. In the Guardian environment, the portion of a filename following the
subvolume name. In the Open System Services (OSS) environment, a file identifier is a
portion of the internal information used to identify a file in the OSS file system (an
inode number). The two identifiers are not comparable.
filename. In the Open System Services (OSS) environment, a component of a pathname
containing any valid characters other than slash (/) or null. See also file name.
file name. A string of characters that uniquely identifies a file.
In the PC environment, file names for disk files normally have at least two parts (the
disk name and the file name); for example, B:MYFILE.
In the Guardian environment, disk file names include an Expand node name, volume
name, subvolume name, and file identifier; for example,
\NODE.$DISK.SUBVOL.MYFILE.
In the Open System Services (OSS) environment, a file is identified by a pathname; for
example, /usr/john/workfile. See also filename.
file lock. A mechanism that restricts access to a file by all processes except the lock owner.
file name. A unique name for a file. This name is used to open a file using a FILE_OPEN_
or OPEN procedure call and thereby provides a connection between the opening
process and the file.
file-name part. That portion of a file name that occurs between two periods, before the first
period, or after the last period. Node name, file ID, process name, process qualifier,
device name, and volume name are all examples of file-name parts.
file-name pattern. A sequence of characters including the asterisk (*) and question mark
(?) that matches existing file names by expanding each asterisk to zero or more letters,
digits, dollar signs ($), and pound signs (#) and replacing each question mark with
exactly one letter, digit, dollar sign, or pound sign.
file-name piece. One or more consecutive parts of a file name separated by periods.
file-name subpart. An element of a file-name part separated from the next element by a
colon (:).