- published: 27 Jun 2014
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The filename is metadata about a file; a string used to uniquely identify a file stored on the file system. Different file systems impose different restrictions on length and allowed characters on filenames.
A filename includes one or more of these components:
To refer to a file on a remote computer filesystem ( host, server) some utilities use the remote computer name or address to prefix the filename.
An absolute reference includes all directory levels. In some systems, a filename reference that does not include the complete directory path it defaults to the current working directory. This is a relative reference. One advantage of using a relative reference in program configuration files or scripts is that different instances of the script or program can use different files.
Unix-like file systems allow a file to have more than one name; in traditional Unix-style file systems, the names are hard links to the file's inode or equivalent. Windows supports hard links on NTFS file systems, but provides no command line tool for creating them until Windows Vista. Hard links are different from Windows shortcuts, Mac OS aliases, or symbolic links.