Introduction

Unix provides a file-style interface to all devices and system features. The special files provide direct access to devices such as USB sticks and disk drives and provide access to system functions such as memory usage, sensors, and the process stack. For example, the command terminal we use is associated with a device file. We can write to the terminal by writing to the corresponding device file. We can access directories, regular files, block devices, character-special devices, symbolic links, sockets, named pipes, and so on as files. Filename, size, file type, modification time, access time, change time, inode, links associated, and the filesystem the file is on are all attributes and properties files can have. This chapter deals with recipes to handle operations or properties related to files.