Incapability-based computer security, aC-list is anarray of capabilities, usually associated with aprocess and maintained by thekernel. The program running in the process does not manipulate capabilities directly, but refers to them viaC-list indexes—integers indexing into the C-list.
Thefile descriptor table inUnix is an example of a C-list. Unix processes do not manipulatefile descriptors directly, but refer to them via file descriptor numbers, which are C-list indexes.
In theKeyKOS andEROS operating systems, a process's capability registers constitute a C-list.[1]