20.1 File System Concepts

This section describes the Common Lisp interface to file systems. The model used by this interface assumes that files are named by filenames, that a filename can be represented by a pathname object, and that given a pathname a stream can be constructed that connects to a file whose filename it represents.

For information about opening and closing files, and manipulating their contents, see Section 21 (Streams).

The next figure lists some operators that are applicable to files and directories.

compile-file  file-length      open            
delete-file   file-position    probe-file      
directory     file-write-date  rename-file     
file-author   load             with-open-file  

Figure 20-1. File and Directory Operations

20.1.1 Coercion of Streams to Pathnames

20.1.2 File Operations on Open and Closed Streams

20.1.3 Truenames