film

n 1: a form of entertainment that enacts a story by a sequence of

images giving the illusion of continuous movement; "they

went to a movie every Saturday night"; "the film was

shot on location" [syn: {movie}, {picture}, {moving

picture}, {motion picture}, {picture show}, {flick}]

2: a medium (art or business) that disseminates moving

pictures: "theater pieces transferred to celluloid"; "this

story would be good cinema"; "film coverange of sporting

events" [syn: {cinema}, {celluloid}]

3: a base of celluloid covered with a photographic emulsion;

used to make negatives or transparencies [syn: {photographic

film}]

4: a thin coating or layer; "the table was covered with a film

of dust"

5: a thin sheet of (usually plastic and usually transparent)

material used to wrap or cover things [syn: {plastic film}]

v 1: make a film or photograph of something; "take a scene";

"shoot a movie" [syn: {shoot}, {take}]

2: record in film; "The coronation was filmed"

file

An element of data storage in a {file system}.

The history of computing is rich in varied kinds of files and

{file systems}, whether ornate (e.g., {Macintosh file system}

for a well-known case) or deficient (e.g., many simple

pre-1980s file systems don't allow {directories}).

However, the prototypical file has these characteristics:

▫ It is a single sequence of bytes (but consider {Macintosh}

{resource forks}).

▫ It has a finite length, unlike, e.g. a {Unix} {device}.

▫ It is stored in a {non-volatile storage} medium (but see

{ramdrive}).

▫ It exists (nominally) in a {directory}.

▫ It has a name that it can be referred to by in file

operations, possibly in combination with its {path}.

Additionally, a file system may associate other information

with a file, such as {permission} bits or other {file

attributes}; timestamps for file creation, last revision, and

last access; revision numbers (a` la VMS), and other kinds of

{magic}.

(1997-04-08)