Mac OS X Leopard - ARCAism

Finder or
Darwin Term Alternate Term Notes
Alias N/A An alias in Darwin is a simple command set up
in the shell that can trigger more complex
commands or allow you to override the behavior
of an existing command.
Directory path N/A The directory path is a representation of where
you are in the file system, beginning from the root
directory. For example, if your user name is scott,
then the path to your home directory would be
/Users/scott/ (your home directory can also be
abbreviated to ~, as you will see later). The
leading / represents the root directory.
Executable command Application or script Any command that’s issued at the command line
and causes something to happen can be referred
to as an executable.
Command arguments, N/A Arguments are additional, sometimes necessary
arguments information added to commands. Arguments
don’t affect how the command is run in the way
options do; instead, they generally target the
command to affect specific items.
Command options, Switches (DOS) Command options are special arguments
options (usually preceded by a - and immediately
following the command) that can change how
a command is run. This is similar to setting
command preferences for an Aqua application,
but more flexible, as different preferences can be
issued at runtime. For Windows and DOS users,
these are like switches issued with a DOS or
Windows command prompt command.
Process N/A A process is a running application or daemon (also
known as a background process). In Leopard (and
in fact most modern systems), there can be (and
often are) hundreds of processes running at any
one time.
Pipes N/A Pipes, represented by the | symbol, provide a way
of stringing two or more commands together.
Piping one command into another is a very
powerful way to accomplish some otherwise very
complex tasks. Pipes, along with redirection, are
covered in more depth later in this chapter.
The File System
CHAPTER 18 INTRODUCING DARWIN AND THE SHELL 291
The Darwin file system shares the same folder structure found while navigating through the
Finder in Quartz. However, while navigating through Darwin, you will notice a few differences.
First, there are quite a few more visible items in the Darwin view. Second, you will find that your
additional volumes (added hard drives, CD/DVD drives, Flash drives, etc.) are found a little
differently.