file descriptor

In computer programming, a file descriptor is an abstract key for accessing a file. The term is generally used in POSIX operating systems. In Microsoft Windows terminology and in the context of the C standard I/O library, "file handle" is preferred, though the latter case is technically a different object (see below).
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<programming, operating system> An integer that identifies an open file within a process. This number is obtained as a result of opening a file. Operations which read, write, or close a file would take the file descriptor as an input parameter.
In many operating system implementations, file descriptors are small integers which index a table of open files. In Unix, file descriptors 0, 1 and 2 correspond to the standard input, standard output and standard error files respectively.
See file descriptor leak.
(1998-02-06)