Paul Kashiyama

In order to ensure that we all start on the right foot, it is critical that you are fully familiar with the basic file system concepts.

Your full understanding of these concepts will be presupposed for the duration of this course; without this foundation you will experience problems and needless frustrations that may prevent you from making deadlines, etc.

If you need further information, there are countless online resources in various presentation styles and details available on the World Wide Web; search and find ones that suits your personal needs.

Here are some basic key terms any computer user should know about file systems.

• File: a named collection of data, used for organizing secondary memory
• File System: the operating system's logical view of the files it manages; different from the actual physical arrangements of the data on storage media
• Directory: a named group of files (aka, folder)
• Text file: plain text, ASCII or Unicode characters, e.g. user account info; HTML source file for a web page
• Binary file: requires a specific interpretation of the bits based on the information in the file, e.g. graphic files, word processor files, spreadsheet files, etc.
• File Type: the specific kind of information contained in a file, e.g., text, image, video, etc.
• File Extension: part of a file name that indicates the file type, e.g., MS Word uses .doc; web pages use .html, etc.
• Directory tree: a logical structure showing the nested directory organization of the file system
• Root directory: the top-most directory, in which all others are contained, e.g., in a typical WIN-TEL PC, "C:\" indicates several pieces of information: "C:" is the disk volume name/identifier (the drive C); the first "\" indicates the root of the directory tree. Under the Windows operating system (OS), the delimiter, "\" (back-slash), separates the subdirectories starting from the root level; With systems controlled by OSs other than Windows, such as the WWW under the UNIX platform, the use of "/" (forward-slash) is required;
• Default: a state or setting that is assumed to be true (active) unless otherwise changed as in default directory: aka, working directory; the currently active subdirectory
• Path (file): a text designation of the logical location of a file or subdirectory in a file system - see two types below:
• Absolute file path: a path that begins at the root and includes all successive subdirectories leading to a specific file, c:\documents\courses\f12\comp101\outline.html;
• Relative file path: a path that begins at the current working directory leading to a specific file, e.g., support-files\images\pix01.gif - specifies that there is a subfolder in the current directory called support-files, which in turn, contains another subfolder called images, which contains the file, pix01.gif. Note: ../ (dot dot slash) character sequence called "double-dot" indicates one level above the default directory.