HP-UX Reference (11i v2 07/12) - 7 Device (Special) Files, 9 General Information, Index (vol 10)

glossary(9) glossary(9)

upshifting

The conversion of a lowercase character to its uppercase representation.

user ID

Each system user is identiﬁed by an integer known as a user ID, which is in the range of zero to

UID_MAX, inclusive. Depending on how the user is identiﬁed with a process, a user ID value is referred

to as a real user ID,aneffective user ID,orasaved user ID.

UTC

See Epoch.

utility

An executable ﬁle, which might contain executable object code (that is, a program), or a list of commands

to execute in a given order (that is, a shell script). You can write your own utilities, either as executable

programs or shell scripts (which are written in the shell programming language).

volume number

Part of an address used for devices. A number whose meaning is software- and device-dependent, but

which is often used to specify a particular volume on a multivolume disk drive. See the System Adminis-

trator manuals supplied with your system for details.

whitespace

One or more characters which, when displayed, cause a movement of the cursor or print head, but do not

result in the display of any visible graphic. The whitespace characters in the ASCII code set are space, tab,

newline, form feed, carriage return, and vertical tab. A particular command or routine might interpret

some, but not necessarily all, whitespace characters as delimiting ﬁelds, words, or command options.

working directory

Each process has associated with it the concept of a current working directory. For a shell, this appears as

the directory in which you currently "reside". This is the directory in which relative path name (that is, a

path name that does not begin with

/) searches begin. It is sometimes referred to as the current direc-

tory, or the current working directory.

zombie process

The name given to a process which terminates for any reason, but whose parent process has not yet waited

for it to terminate (via wait(2)). The process which terminated continues to occupy a slot in the process

table until its parent process waits for it. Because it has terminated, however, there is no other space allo-

cated to it either in user or kernel space. It is therefore a relatively harmless occurrence which will rectify

itself the next time its parent process waits. The ps(1) command lists zombie processes as

defunct.