Synthetic file system (original) (raw)

In computer science, a synthetic file system or a pseudo file system is a hierarchical interface to non-file objects that appear as if they were regular files in the tree of a disk-based or long-term-storage file system. These non-file objects may be accessed with the same system calls or utility programs as regular files and directories. The common term for both regular files and the non-file objects is node. This is commonly known as everything is a file and is generally regarded to have originated from Unix.