What is a file?

A file is a named collection of related information that is recorded on secondary storage. A file contains either programs or data. A file has certain “structure” based on its type.
1 File attributes: Name, identifier, type, size, location, protection, time, date 
2 File operations: creation, reading, writing, repositioning, deleting, truncating, appending, renaming
3 File types: executable, object, library, source code etc.