POSIX inodes differentiate 7 standard file types ; files, commands, redirections, and pipes

TIL / TIAR : POSIX Kernel's Virtual File System : VFS

While [ reading ] and [ writing ] to [ files ] are abstract operations, the file's [ inode : index node ] has metadata , which tells the kernel to [ handle the file in one of 7 standard ways ] : 

in RAM :

• 1. file
• 2. directory
• 3. symbolic link
• 4. pipes : FIFOs : uni-directional : local oriented
• 5. sockets : bi-directional : network oriented

elsewhere DRIVEN :

• 6. character devices
• 7. block devices

---

... and subsequently ...

• FILES : nouns : storage media
• COMMANDS : verbs : operations on storage media
• REDIRECTIONS : transport data between COMMANDS and FILES
• PIPES : transport data between COMMANDS and COMMANDS

omfg. took 16+ years to make this note lol