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File System Operations (cont)

Unix also defines a range of file-system-related types:
  • off_t ... offsets within files
    • typically, long and signed to allow backward refs
  • size_t ... number of bytes in some object
    • unsigned, since objects can't have negative size
  • ssize_t ... sizes of read/written blocks
    • like size_t, but signed to allow for error values
  • struct stat ... file system object metadata
    • stores information about file, not file content
    • requires ino_t, dev_t, time_t, uid_t, ...