Question

How many data structures does the kernel maintain in memory that contain information about an open file?

(a) 3

(b) 2

(c) 5

(d) 1

I had been asked this question in unit test.

I need to ask this question from File handling System Calls topic in portion System Programming I – Files of Unix

Answer 1

Right choice is (a) 3

Easiest explanation: The kernel maintains three data structures in memory that contain all information about an open file that a process needs to access. These data structures are:

The file descriptor table

The file table

The vnode table