Glossary

persistent: Pertaining to a program that runs indefinitely and keeps at least some of its data in permanent storage.

format operator: An operator, %, that takes a format string and a tuple and generates a string that includes the elements of the tuple formatted as specified by the format string.

format string: A string, used with the format operator, that contains format sequences.

format sequence: A sequence of characters in a format string, like %d, that specifies how a value should be formatted.

text file: A sequence of characters stored in permanent storage like a hard drive.

directory: A named collection of files, also called a folder.

path: A string that identifies a file.

relative path: A path that starts from the current directory.

absolute path: A path that starts from the topmost directory in the file system.