Unit 6 OS
Unit 6 OS
M.A. Zahed
Lecturer
Unit VI: File Management
File Concept
⚫ Collection of related information that is recorded in
secondary storage
⚫ Types:
◦ Data
● numeric
● character
● binary
◦ Program
⚫ Contents defined by file’s creator
◦ Many types
● Consider text file, source file, executable
file
File Attributes
⚫ Name – only information kept in human-readable form
⚫ Identifier – unique tag (number) identifies file within file
system
⚫ Type – needed for systems that support different types
⚫ Location – pointer to file location on device
⚫ Size – current file size
⚫ Protection – controls who can do reading, writing,
executing
⚫ Time, date, and user identification – data for
protection, security, and usage monitoring
⚫ Information about files are kept in the directory structure,
which is maintained on the disk
⚫ Many variations, including extended file attributes such as
file checksum
⚫ Information kept in the directory structure
File Operations
⚫ Create
⚫ Write – at write pointer location
⚫ Read – at read pointer location
⚫ Reposition within file - seek
⚫ Delete
⚫ Truncate
⚫ Open(Fi) – search the directory structure on disk
for entry Fi, and move the content of entry to
memory
⚫ Close (Fi) – move the content of entry Fi in
memory to directory structure on disk
File Types – Name, Extension
Allocation Methods
⚫An allocation method refers to
how disk blocks are allocated for
files:
⚫Contiguous allocation
⚫Linked allocation
⚫Indexed allocation
Contiguous Allocation
block = pointer
Linked Allocation (Cont.)