HP-UX Reference (11i v2 03/08) - 5 Miscellaneous Topics, 7 Device (Special) Files, 9 General Information, Index (vol 9)

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glossary(9) glossary(9)
/etc/inittab. Do not confuse the multiuser system with the multiuser state. A mul-
tiuser system is a system which can have more than one user actively communicating
with the system when it is in the multiuser state. The multiuser state removes the
single-user restriction imposed by the single-user state (see single-user state, init-
tab(4)).
native language
A computer user’s spoken or written language, such as Chinese, Dutch, English, French,
German, Greek, Italian, Katakana, Korean, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, etc.
Native Language Support (NLS)
A feature of HP-UX that provides the user with internationalized software and the appli-
cation programmer with tools to develop this software.
newline character
The character with an ASCII value of 10 (line feed) used to separate lines of characters.
It is represented by \n in the C language and in various utilities. The terminal driver
normally interprets a carriage-return/line-feed sequence sent by a terminal as a single
newline character (but see tty (7) for full details)
NLS See Native Language Support.
NLSPATH An environment variable used to indicate the search path for message catalogs (see mes-
sage catalog).
node name A string of up to 31 characters, not including control characters or spaces, that uniquely
identifies a node on a Local Area Network (LAN). The node name for each system is set
by the
npowerup command, which is one of the commands supplied with optional
LAN/9000 products. Do not confuse a node name with a host name, which is a string
that uniquely identifies an HP-UX system on a UUCP network. Your node and host
names can be identical, but they are used and set by totally different software. See host
name, LAN/9000 User’s Guide, and LAN/9000 Node Manager’s Guide.
nonspacing characters
Characters, such as a diacritical mark or accents, that are used in combination with
other characters to form composite graphic symbols commonly found in non-English
languages.
open file A file that is currently associated with a file descriptor.
open file description
A record of how a process or a group of processes is accessing a file. Each file descrip-
tor refers to exactly one open file description, but an open file description can be
referred to by more than one file descriptor. The file offset, file status flags, and file
access modes are attributes of an open file description.
ordinary file A type of HP-UX file containing ASCII text (e.g., program source), binary data (e.g., exe-
cutable code), etc. Ordinary files can be created by the user through I/O redirection, edi-
tors, or HP-UX commands.
orphan process
A child process that is left behind when a parent process terminates for any reason.
The
init process (see init(1M)) inherits (that is, becomes the effective parent of) all
orphan processes.
orphaned process group
A process group in which the parent of every member is either itself a member of the
group or is not a member of the group’s session.
owner The owner of a file is usually the creator of that file. However, the ownership of a file can
be changed by the superuser or the current owner with the chown(1) command or the
chown(2) system call. The file owner is able to do whatever he wants with his files,
including remove them, copy them, move them, change their contents, etc. The owner
can also change the files’ modes.
parent directory
The directory one level above a directory in the file hierarchy. All directories except
the root directory (
/) have one (and only one) parent directory. The root directory
has no parent. See also dot and dot-dot.
Section 9−−14 Hewlett-Packard Company − 13 − HP-UX 11i Version 2: August 2003