ikkeskrivbar

Ikkeskrivbar is a Swedish term used mainly in information technology to describe data, files, or storage that cannot be written to under the current conditions. It denotes a state where writing is prohibited or impossible, either temporarily or permanently.

Etymology and usage: The word is formed from ikke-, a negating prefix meaning not, and skrivbar, meaning writable. The compound ikkeskrivbar is common in Swedish technical writing; an alternative form is icke-skrivbar. In practice, something ikkeskrivbar may be due to lack of write permissions, protective file attributes, a read-only file system, or hardware write protection. It can apply to individual files, whole directories, or mounted volumes.

Contexts and implications: In computing, a file might be ikkeskrivbar if the owner or group does not have write rights, or if a filesystem is mounted read-only. Advanced attributes, such as the immutable flag on Unix-like systems, can also render an item ikkeskrivbar regardless of normal permissions. The term is often used to describe the intended or enforced state of an object, not necessarily its historical or future capability to be written.

Nuance and related terms: Ikkezkrivbar is frequently used interchangeably with skrivskyddad (write-protected) or read-only, though some contexts distinguish a temporary read-only access from a permanently protected state. In software design, data deemed ikkeskkrivbar are typically treated as immutable or protected against modification.

See also: skrivskydd, read-only, write protection, chmod, chattr, immutable.