Operating

Systems
Lecture 42
Syed Mansoor Sarwar
 Agenda for Today
 Review of the previous lecture
 File Concept
 File Types
 File Operations
 Access Methods
 Directories
 Directory Operations
 Directory Structure
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Review of Lecture 41
 Thrashing
 The Working Set Model
 Page Fault Frequency Model
 Other Considerations
 Prepaging
 Page size
 Program structure
 Examples
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 The File Concept
 Contiguous logical address
space
 Types:
 Data
Numeric
Character
Binary
 Program
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 File Structure
 None - sequence of words, bytes
 Simple record structure
 Lines
 Fixed length
 Variable length

 Complex Structures
 Formatted document
 Relocatable load file
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 File Structure
 Who decides?
Operating system
DOS/Windows
.exe, .com, .bat, …
Program
UNIX/Linux

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 File Attributes
 Name
 Type
 Location
 Size
 Protection
 Owner
 Time and date created
 Time and date last updated
 Read/write pointer value
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Where are Attributes
Stored
 In the directory structure, as
part of the directory entry for
the file—DOS, Windows
 In a separate data structure;
in UNIX/Linux this structure is
known as the inode for the
file
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 Directory Entry
 DOS/Windows: File name and
attributes
 UNIX/Linux: File name and inode
number.
 Name can be up to 255 characters in
BSD UNIX compliant systems
 Inode number—used to access file’s
inode
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 Directory Entry
 DOS/Windows

File Date … FAT

Name Pointer

 UNIX/Linux

File Name Inode

Number
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 File Operations
 Create — creat
 Open — open
 Write — write
 Read — read
 Reposition within file — lseek
 Delete — unlink
 Truncate — creat with a special flag
 Close — close
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File Types: Extensions

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 File Types in UNIX
 Ordinary file
 Directory
 Block-special file
 Character-special file
 Link file (ln –s)
 FIFO (mkfifo or mknod)
 Socket (in BSD-compliant
systems—socket)
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 File Operations
 Sequential Access
 read next
 write next
 reset
 Direct Access
 read n (n = relative block number)
 write n
 position to n
read next
write
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next
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 Sequential Access
File

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Sequential Access on
a Direct Access File

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 Directory Structure
 A collection of directory entries

Directory

Files and F1 F2 F4 Fn
F3
Directories
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Directory Operations
 Create — mkdir
 Open — opendir
 Read — readdir
 Rewind — rewinddir
 Close — closedir
 Delete — rmdir
 Change Directory — cd
 List — ls
 Search
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 Directory Structure
 Efficient
Searching
 Naming – convenient to users
 Two users can have same name
for different files
 The same file can have several
different names
 Grouping – logical grouping of
files by properties, (e.g., all Java
programs, all games, …)
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Single-Level Directory
 A single directory for all users.

 Naming problem
 Grouping problem
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 Two-Level Directory
 Separate directory for each user

 Path name
 Can have the same file name for different user
 Efficient searching
 No grouping
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 Tree Directory

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 Tree Directory
 Efficient searching
 Grouping Capability
 Root directory
 Home directory
 Current/working directory
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 Tree Directory
 UNIX / Linux
 Root directory (/)
 Home directory
 ~, $HOME, $home
 cd ~
 cd
 Current/working directory (.)
 pwd
 Parent of Current Directory (..)
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 Tree Directory
 Absolute Pathname
 Starts with the root directory
 /etc, /bin, /usr/bin,
/etc/passwd,
/home/students/ibraheem
 Relative Pathname
 Starts with the current directory or a
user’s home directory
 ~/courses/cs604, ./a.out
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 Recap of Lecture
 File Concept
 File Types
 File Operations
 Access Methods
 Directories
 Directory Operations
 Directory Structure
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 Operating
Systems
Lecture 42
Syed Mansoor Sarwar

14 September 2019 © Copyright Virtual University of

Pakistan