File system manipulation

An operating system (OS) is basically a collection of software that manages computer hardware resources and provides common services for computer programs. Operating system is a crucial component of the system software in a computer system.

These are some few common services provided by an operating system −

Program execution
I/O operations
File System manipulation
Communication
Error Detection
Resource Allocation
Protection

A file represents a collection of related information. Computers may store files on the disk (secondary storage), for long-term storage purpose. Some Examples: magnetic tape, magnetic disk and optical disk drives like CD, DVD. They have its own properties like speed, capacity, data transfer rate and data access methods.

A file system is generally organized into directories for easy navigation and usage. These directories can contain files and other directions. Some of the major activities of an operating system with respect to file management are −

Program requires to read a file or write a file.
Operating system gives the permission to the program for operation on file.
This permission varies from read-only, read-write, denied and so on.
The Operating System provides an interface to the user to create/delete files and directories.
The Operating System provides an interface to create the backup of file system.

Arnab Chakraborty

Updated on 17-Oct-2019 11:22:43

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