Concept of file management (OS)

5.1 Introduction to file management

File management is a critical function of an operating system (OS) that allows users to store, retrieve, organize, and manipulate files efficiently. It ensures efficient handling of files, enabling the creation, reading, updating, and deletion of files.

A file management system has limited capabilities and is designed to manage individual or group files, such as special office documents and records. It may display report details, like owner, creation date, state of completion and similar features useful in an office environment. A file management system is also known as a file manager.

5.2 File naming, file operations, file extension and file system layout

File Naming

Descriptive file names are an important part of organizing, sharing, and keeping track of data files. Develop a naming convention based on elements that are important to the project.

File naming best practices:

●        Files should be named consistently

●        File names should be short but descriptive (<25 characters)

●        Avoid special characters or spaces in a file name

●        Use capitals and underscores instead of periods or spaces or slashes

●        Use date format ISO 8601: YYYYMMDD

 

The most basic operations that programs can perform on a file are:

●        Create a new file.

●        Change the access permissions and attributes of a file.

●        Open a file, which makes the file contents available to the program.

●        Read data from a file.

●        Write data to a file.

●        Delete a file.

File Extension

A file extension, or filename extension, is a suffix at the end of a computer file. It comes after the period and is usually two to four characters long. If you’ve ever opened a document or viewed a picture, you’ve probably noticed these letters at the end of your file.

File extensions are used by the operating system to identify what apps are associated with what file types. For example, a file named “sankalpa.jpg” has the “jpg” file extension. When you open that file in Windows, for example, the operating system looks for whatever app is associated with JPG files, opens that app, and loads the file.