UNIX Filesystem Overview
[previous]
[next]
[table of contents] [index]
MH is different from other UNIX mail user agents because it takes special
advantage of the UNIX filesystem.
The Figure below
is a diagram of typical files and directories that MH and uses.
Figure: Important parts of a UNIX filesystem
Here's an explanation of each of the filesystem parts:
-
The gray boxes are directories.
The full pathname of each directory is at the top.
Most of the directories belong to the ehuser account, but three in the
top row are "system" directories.
-
Inside the directories are files and subdirectories (and one
symbolic link) -- each of these are shown as a white box.
Each white subdirectory box has an arrow pointing out and down to another
gray box, which shows what's in that subdirectory.
The gray line represents a symbolic link.
(Symbolic links, also called soft links, aren't available on all
versions of UNIX.)
-
There are two kinds of files here.
Text files are shown with some readable (if cryptic) words in them.
Binary files (directly executable programs) are shown in boxes full of
0s and 1s.
To keep things simple, the diagram omits a lot of directories.
It also omits some (or many) of the files in each directory.
One of the handiest ways to use the information in this figure is to
create separate MH sessions.
This lets you work on more than one message, in more than one folder,
simultaneously.
[Table of Contents] [Index]
[Previous: Chapter Introduction]
[Next: MH Programs (Binaries) Directory]
|
