Everything is a file

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"Everything is a file" is an idea that

The advantage of this approach is that the same set of tools, utilities and APIs can be used on a wide range of resources and a number of file types. When a file is opened, a file descriptor is created, using the file path as an addressing system. The file descriptor is then a byte stream I/O interface on which file operations are performed. File descriptors are also created for objects such as anonymous pipes and network sockets – and therefore a more accurate description of this feature is Everything is a file descriptor.^[2][3]

Additionally, a range of pseudo and virtual filesystems exists which exposes internal kernel data, such as information about processes, to user space in a hierarchical file-like structure.^[4] These are mounted into the single file hierarchy.

An example of this purely virtual filesystem is under

• 9P – A network protocol developed for the Plan 9 distributed operating system
• Device file
• Synthetic file system
• Unix architecture
• Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
• https://www.kernel.org/doc/gorman/html/understand/understand015.html
• https://tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/html/sect_03_01.html

References