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Concept
File descriptor
Summary
In Unix and Unix-like computer operating systems, a file descriptor (FD, less frequently fildes) is a process-unique identifier (handle) for a or other input/output resource, such as a pipe or network socket.
File descriptors typically have non-negative integer values, with negative values being reserved to indicate "no value" or error conditions.
File descriptors are a part of the POSIX API. Each Unix process (except perhaps daemons) should have three standard POSIX file descriptors, corresponding to the three standard streams:
In the traditional implementation of Unix, file descriptors index into a per-process maintained by the kernel, that in turn indexes into a system-wide table of files opened by all processes, called the . This table records the mode with which the file (or other resource) has been opened: for reading, writing, appending, and possibly other modes. It also indexes into a third table called the inode table that describes the actual underlying files. To perform input or output, the process passes the file descriptor to the kernel through a system call, and the kernel will access the file on behalf of the process. The process does not have direct access to the file or inode tables.
On Linux, the set of file descriptors open in a process can be accessed under the path /proc/PID/fd/, where PID is the process identifier. File descriptor /proc/PID/fd/0 is stdin, /proc/PID/fd/1 is stdout, and /proc/PID/fd/2 is stderr. As a shortcut to these, any running process can also access its own file descriptors through the folders /proc/self/fd and /dev/fd.
In Unix-like systems, file descriptors can refer to any named in a file system. As well as regular files, this includes , block and character devices (also called "special files"), Unix domain sockets, and named pipes. File descriptors can also refer to other objects that do not normally exist in the file system, such as anonymous pipes and network sockets.
The FILE data structure in the C standard I/O library usually includes a low level file descriptor for the object in question on Unix-like systems.
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