The Different Types of

Operating System file

Extension
BY: GROUP 3
Regular Files

►Regular files contain user information. Generally,

regular files are either ASCII files or binary files.
These two types of files are described below .
Directories

►Directories are the system files that are used to maintain

the structure of the file system.

►To keep track of files, file systems typically use

directories. Directories are files in and of themselves in
many systems.
Single-Level Directory Systems

► The simplest form of the directory system is a directory that contains all of the files, also known as the root
directory. This system was common in earlier PCs because there was only one user.

► The world's first supercomputer, the CDC 6600, also had only a single directory for all files and was used by
multiple users concurrently.

► This system was created to keep every software design as simple as possible. The diagram below depicts an
example of this system.

► single level directory system

► Having only one directory in a system with multiple users may result in different users accidentally using the same
names for their files.
Two-Level Directory Systems

► Two-level directory systems are used to avoid the problems caused by the single-level directory
system, as we have learned in the previous section.

► In two-level directory systems, give each user a private directory. So, in this two-level directory
system, the names chosen by one user don't affect the names chosen by another user, and having the
same name in two or more directories doesn't cause any problems.

► The figure given below shows this system:

► two level directory systems

Path Names

► When the file system is organized as a directory tree, a method for

specifying the names of the files is required, and this method must
be discovered. As a result, the file names are typically specified
using one of the two methods that are listed below:

► Absolute path name

► Relative path name
Absolute Path Name

► The path from the top-level directory all the way down to the file is what the
"absolute path name" refers to. As an example, the path

► means that the root directory has a subdirectory called usr, which has another
subdirectory called codescracker, which has a file called myfile inside of it. The
file is located within the codescracker directory.

► On the Windows platform, the above-mentioned path name can be specified

using the following format:
Relative Path Name

► The relative path name is used in conjunction with the concept of the working directory or
current directory.

► A user can designate one directory as the current working directory, in which case all the
path names not beginning at the root directory are taken relative to the working directory.

► If the current working directory is /usr/codescracker, for example, the file whose absolute
path is /usr/codescracker/myfile can now be called myfile.
Character Special Files

►Character special files are mostly about I/O and are used
to model serial input/output devices like printers,
networks, and so on.
Block Special Files

►Basically, block-specific files are used to model the disks.