Manipulating files: copying, renaming, searching, analyzing, archiving, etc. For operating on text in a file, see /text-processing. For questions about the Files file manager (formerly Nautilus), see /nautilus.
A computer file is a logical entity that resides in a filesystem and is either empty or contains data. Depending on the filesystem, files have certain attributes, such as: (full) path, name, permissions, size, etc. Files are typically arranged in a set of folders or directories to separate them by purpose.
For the Gnome file manager Files, formerly known as Nautilus, see nautilus.
We have a canonical question with several good examples that asks:
There are many tags on this site that are related to files; use these either along-side or in place of the files tag:
- rename - either generically renaming files or the prename (perl rename) utility
- find - a utility to find files
- permissions - who can read, write, and execute a file
- directory - logical container for a set of files
- filesystems - contains files and directories on a storage device
- ls - lists files and their attributes
- rm - removes a file
- mv - renames one or more files
- wildcards - special syntax for a shell to specify more than one file, using a pattern
- symlink - special link to another file
- logs - files that contain messages from one or more programs
- filenames - name of a file
- file-copy - copying files from one place to another (e.g. cp, rsync, dd)
There are other tags on this site that deal with the processing of the data in files; use them in place of this tag:
- text-processing - performing some operation (modifying, adding, deleting) on text in a file
- text-formatting - presenting the text in a file in a different way
