In computer science, a synthetic file system is a hierarchical interface to non-file objects that appear as if they were regular files in the tree of the disk-based filesystem. 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.
The benefit of synthetic file systems is that well known file system semantics can be reused for a universal and easily implementable approach to interprocess communication. Clients can use such a file system to perform simple file operations on its nodes, and do not have to implement complex message encoding and passing methods and other aspects of protocol engineering. For most operations, common file utilities can be used, so even scripting is quite easy.
This is commonly known as everything is a file and is generally regarded to have originated from Unix.
Read more about Synthetic File System: Arguments For Using Synthetic Filesystems, Arguments Against Synthetic Filesystems
Famous quotes containing the words synthetic, file and/or system:
“In every philosophical school, three thinkers succeed one another in the following way: the first produces out of himself the sap and seed, the second draws it out into threads and spins a synthetic web, and the third waits in this web for the sacrificial victims that are caught in it—and tries to live off philosophy.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled “Science Fiction” ... and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal.”
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—Donald Davidson (b. 1917)