REAL TIME OPERATING SYSTEMS
Lesson-7:
File System Organization and
Implementation
2008 Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming 1
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
1. File
2008 Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming 2
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
File
a named entity on a magnetic disc, or
optical disc, or system memory or
memory stick
contains has the data, characters and text
2008 Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming 3
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
OSes differing abstractions of a file
i) A file may be a named entity that is a
structured record named entity as on a disk,
which has having random access in the
system.
ii) May be a structured record on a RAM
analogous to a disk and may also be either
called separately called as ‘RAM disk’ or
simply ,simply, as a ‘file’ itself (virtual
device).
2008 Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming 4
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
OSes differing abstractions of a file
(iii) May be an unstructured record of bits
or bytes.
(iv) A file device may be a pipe -like device
2008 Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming 5
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
2. File organization in a file system
2008 Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming 6
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
File organization in a system
• File is organized in a way according to a file
system, which has set of command
functions for operations on the file
2008 Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming 7
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Standard set of interfaces
Should a file having integers differ from a
file having bytes?
Should a file having bytes differ from file
having characters?
Due to the differing approaches to device
and file management interfaces, the
development of a set of standard interfaces
must.
Then only then can systems can be portable.
2008 Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming 8
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Two type of file systems─
systems─ Block File
System
Block File System. Its application generates
records to be saved into the memory.
First structured into a suitable format and
then translated into block-streams.
A file pointer (record) points to a block
from the start to the end of the file.
2008 Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming 9
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Two type of file systems ─ Byte Stream File
System
Byte Stream File-System. Its application
generates record stream.
Stream are to be saved into the memory.
These are first structured into a suitable
format and then translated into byte-stream.
A file pointer (byte index) points to a byte
from the start index = 0 to N-1 in a file of N
bytes
2008 Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming 10
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
POSIX
A standard set of interfaces.
File operations are as the operations on a
linear sequence of bytes
2008 Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming 11
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
POSIX
POSIX stands for Portable Operating
System Interface IEEE standard for coding
the programs when using the multiple
threads.
The X after I is because of the interfaces
being similar to ones in UNIX like.
It is according to the definitions at A T & T
UNIX System V Interface.
2008 Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming 12
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Set of Command Functions in the
POSIX File System
open ( )
write ( ) in the byte stream at the present
pointer position
read ( ) from the byte stream present pointer
position
lseek (List seek) or set the file pointer in the
byte stream
fcntl ( )
close ( ) Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming
2008 13
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
UNIX and LINUX File Systems
Unix has a structured file system with an
unstructured hardware interface.
Linux supports different standard file-
systems for the system
2008 Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming 14
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
File Device
File devices are block devices in UNIX.
Linux permits the use of a block devices as
a char devices also. This is because between
block-device to char-device, Linux has an
additional interface.
Kernel interface is identical for the char and
block devices in Linux and not in UNIX.
2008 Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming 15
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
RAM disk
File on the RAM that is hierarchically
organized is is known as RAM disk.
RAM memory storage is analogous to that
on the disk and accessing is also analogous
to a disk.
For example, path for accessing a file is
directory, then subdirectory, then folder and
then subfolder. There is hierarchical tree
like filing organisation
2008 Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming 16
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
3. File descriptor
2008 Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming 17
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
File descriptor─
descriptor─ fd
An integer, which returns on opening a file
and which points to a data structure.
2008 Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming 18
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
File describing data structure
Identity
Creator or Owner
State
Locks and Protection fields
file Info
Sharing Permission
Count
Storing Media Details
2008 Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming 19
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Summary
2008 Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming 20
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
We learnt
• File Manager has functions to create, open,
reads, seek a record, write, and close a file.
• A file has a file descriptor.
2008 Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming 21
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
End of Lesson 7 of Chapter 8
2008 Chapter-8 L7: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming 22
and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
