What is POSIX

WillingToLikeLinux · 06-30-2009, 01:47 AM

Well I still don't get what POSIX is.

I know some people mistaken POSIX like "a standards of system to make an operating system of any kind into the time-proven generic UNIX system".

I'm still getting confused more than before. I thought I grasped the idea what POSIX is then I don't.

Can anybody tell what it is in easy words?

Thank you.

acid_kewpie · 06-30-2009, 02:34 AM

Well your summary seems pretty logical and correct to me. It's a set of defined standards which UNIX-like systems conform to. e.g. a POSIX compliant filesystem includes standards such as POSIX file permissions - rwxr--r--, as opposed to how a non-POSIX filesytem like NTFS handles them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POSIX

Fred Caro · 06-30-2009, 04:05 AM

Well, I can understand the confusion. How can you have a standard with different versions, except by date? Then drop one! Whilst here can anyone explain why, or if, every file or directory you make has to have a set of permissions before it is remembered, can it not just be attached to a file system and I don't mean by time.

Fred.

chrism01 · 07-01-2009, 01:39 AM

Quote:

before it is remembered,

what does that mean???

Fred Caro · 07-02-2009, 12:46 AM

'remembered' , what does that mean? What do you think it means? To be a little more clear 'remembered' means credited or made part of the file system.

Fred.

chrism01 · 07-03-2009, 01:59 AM

Well in any OS that has permissions as part of its basic design eg *nix, VMS etc, then yes it will always have a default set if you don't change them.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inode & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_system_permissions

veerain · 07-03-2009, 02:20 AM

It's set of standards for the Operating System UNIX and it's clones like Linux. POSIX stands for "Portable Operating System Interface for Unix"