File System Basics - Solaris 9 System Administrator - page 128

Sometimes files and directories may not be needed often or use up more
space than desired. To address this issue, Solaris 9 provides several utilities to
compress files and directories so that they take up less space, but can be uncom-
pressed as needed.

This portion of the chapter provides an overview of these file/directory con-
cepts and of file/directory compression.

Types of Files
The allocated space on file systems is in the form of directories or files.
There is only one type of directory. However, there are several types of files.
The files used to store data or executables are referred to as regular or ordi-
nary files. Other files are used for special purposes. Table 6.3 lists all sup-
ported file types. The type of file can be identified by a single character ID
produced by the ls -l command.

Table 6.3 File Types

Type ls -l ID Description

Regular - An ordinary or regular file. Used for data and executables.

Directory d A directory. Used to organize files and other directories.

Link l A symbolic link. Used to provide an alternative path to a file or

directory (see the next section).

Block b A file that provides an interface to a block-oriented peripheral

Special device. These are typically located under the /dev or /device

directories. Also referred to as device files.

Character c A file that provides an interface to a character-oriented

Special peripheral device. These are typically located under the /dev or

/device directories. Also referred to as device files.

Door D A file that provides an RPC mechanism interface between pro-

grams and between the kernel and a user space process.

FIFO p A first-in-first-out or named pipe data structure that provides

a mechanism for two cooperating FIFO to communicate.

Socket s A network ( AF_UNIX ) socket data structure used to communi-

cate via a network interface.

You should be familiar with the types of files supported in the Solaris environment
and with the character ID used by the ls command to identify the types of files.