Linux file types

Linux supports multiple file types such as normal files, directory, socket files etc. we can use command ‘ll’ or ‘li –al ’ to list the file and check the file type by the first character of the output.

In general, linux system has the below file types:

-     normal files
d     directory file
l     link (symlink) file
s     socket file
p     pipe file
b     block file
c     character file

normal file. (marked as ‘-’)

Most of the files in linux system are normal files, it includes normal text file, library files, zip files, executable binaries

Directory: (marked as ‘d’)

Directory is a special kind of the file, it contains can contain other kind of files including directories.

Block device file(marked as ‘b’)

Block files are in /dev/ directory, they are some kind of presuedo files. The file can be visited randomly such as disk, usd stick.

Character device file (marked as ‘c’)

Character files are in /dev/ directory as well, the file has to be visited by sequence. It contains device such as mouse, keyboard, serial ports, console tty.

Both character and block files are called device file.

Socket file (marked as ‘s’)

Socket file is used for process communication. Note, it is not the network socket file, it is the unix socket file.

Link file (marked as ‘l’)

The file is linked file (symlink) and created by ‘ln -s’ command.