UNIX General Terms

F
field
1. The basic unit of information in a record. 
2. In awk, one element of an input record. 
See also record
field separator
One or more characters used to separate fields in a record. 
file descriptor
A small unsigned integer that a UNIX system uses to identify a file. A file 
descriptor is created by a process through issuing an open system call for the file 

E
ed editor
A line-oriented program for modifying the contents of text files. The program 
operates by accepting commands from the user; for example, issuing the 
command s/Unix/UNIX/g would cause the editor to replace each instance of the 
string "Unix" on the current line with "UNIX." 
editor
A program for modifying the contents of text files. Full-screen editors, such as vi,
use video display terminals to display several lines of the file being manipulated; 

D
daemon
A process that performs a system management function that is transparent to 
the user. A daemon can perform its task automatically or periodically. For 
example, the cron daemon periodically performs the tasks listed in the crontab
file. Daemons can be generated by the system and by applications. Some 
daemons can also be started manually; for example, the binlogd command starts 
a daemon that logs binary event records to specified files. The commands that 

C
c89
A command that invokes the C compiler and whose use is recommended for 
portability among systems that conform to the X/Open UNIX CAE specification for
commands and utilities. 
See also cc, compiler
call
In a programming language, a statement that invokes a subroutine, function, or 
procedure. 
call by reference
In a programming language, a method of passing an argument to a subroutine, a

B
background job
See background process
background process
A job that runs without interfering with normal command-line entries. A process 
runs in the background when the command to begin the process is issued with 
an ampersand (&) character following it. For example, to run the calculator 
program in background, a user would issue the command dxcalc &. As a result, 
the calculator would be invoked in one window, while the command line on which

A
absolute pathname
A pathname that begins at the root directory; a pathname that always begins 
with a slash (/). For example, /usr/games is an absolute pathname. Also called a 
full pathname. 
See also relative pathname
active user
In an XTI transport connection, the transport user that initiated the connection. 
See also client process, passive user, XTI (X/Open Transport Interface)
adb
A program designed to assist the user in debugging other programs under