File System Object
Nix uses a simplified model of the file system, which consists of file system objects. Every file system object is one of the following:
-
File
- A possibly empty sequence of bytes for contents
- A single boolean representing the executable permission
-
Directory
Mapping of names to child file system objects
-
An arbitrary string. Nix does not assign any semantics to symbolic links.
File system objects and their children form a tree. A bare file or symlink can be a root file system object.
Nix does not encode any other file system notions such as hard links, permissions, timestamps, or other metadata.
Examples of file system objects
A plain file:
50 B, executable: false
An executable file:
122 KB, executable: true
A symlink:
-> /usr/bin/sh
A directory with contents:
├── bin
│ └── hello: 35 KB, executable: true
└── share
├── info
│ └── hello.info: 36 KB, executable: false
└── man
└── man1
└── hello.1.gz: 790 B, executable: false
A directory that contains a symlink and other directories:
├── bin -> share/go/bin
├── nix-support/
└── share/