What did Ken Thompson mean when he said, "I'd spell create with an 'e'."

Question

Ken Thompson, the creator of Unix, was once asked what he'd do if he had it to do over again. He said, "I'd spell create with an 'e'."

What is Ken referring to? Is there a "creat" command?

Answer 1

It's a Unix system call that creates a file: At a Unix shell prompt, type man 2 creat to learn more.

Answer 2

Not only he refers to man 2 creat system call. He also refers to the obsolete trends to save on every tiny character, where possible, sometimes this being only confusing, especially now, when typing and storing another character is rarely an obstacle.

Answer 3

It refers to the UNIX system call to create new files. Linkers on some machines were limited to identifiers of at most 6 characters. Apparently, Ken had to work with such a linker and hence the create system call was shortened to creat to match this limitation. The irony is that create does too.

See also, question 682719