About

POSIX (pronounced /ˈpɒzɪks/ POZ-iks) or Portable Operating System Interface [for Unix] is an Operating system interface (API).

The API is specified in a family of related standards specified by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) including:

• a command interpreter (or “shell”),
• and common utility programs to support applications portability at the source code level.

POSIX.1-2008 describes the external characteristics and facilities that are of importance to application developers, rather than the internal construction techniques employed to achieve these capabilities.

The content of the specification includes for instance the following:

• Character Set
• Locale
• Environment Variables
• Regular Expressions
• Directory Structure and Devices

Articles Related

Documentation / Reference

• IEEE Std 1003.1™, 2013 Edition - Base definition
• wiki/POSIX