UNIT –V I

Information management :
•Files Concept and Systems

•File Implementation (Allocation methods)

– Contiguous Allocation

– Linked Allocation

– Indexed Allocation

•Free-Space Management

•Directory structures

•Directory implementation
– linear list

– hash table
 Information management

• Process of storing, Controlling, Managing data stored on

secondary storage in the form of files and directories.
 File Concept
• File is a sequence of bits, bytes, lines, or records, the
meaning of which is defined by the file’s creator and user.
 File Attributes
• Name – Name is usually a string of characters

• Identifier – unique tag (number) identifies file within file

system

• Type – needed for systems that support different types

• Location – pointer to file location on device

• Size – current file size

• Protection – Access Permissions, controls who can do

reading, writing, executing

• Time, date – data for usage monitoring

 File Operations
All operations involve some system calls

1. Create: using a specific system call.

Two steps are necessary to create a file.

1) Space in the file system must be found for the file.

2) An entry for the new file must be made in the directory.

2. Read:
– Open a file
– File pointer points to particular record to be read
– Once a record/character is read, the file pointer is
increment.
 File Operations
3. Write:

– Pointer is at the end of the file

– Can be repositioned and is incremented after every

write

4. Delete

5. Truncate
File Types – Name, Extension
 Criteria for File Organization
1. Economy of Storage

• There should be minimum redundancy in data

• Redundancy can be used to speed up the

access

2. Simple

3. Maintenance

4. Reliability
 File System
• It is a part of OS, responsible for controlling secondary
storage space.

• File system consists of following:

– Access Methods: Manner in which data stored in files
is accessed
– Storage Management: Allocating space for files on
secondary storage devices.
– File Management: Provide mechanism for files to be
stored, shared and secured.
– File Integrity Mechanism: Guaranteeing that file
information is not corrupted
 Access Methods
• 1. Sequential Access:
• Information of the file is processed in order, one record after the other.

read next: reads a portion of the file (read record) and automatically
updates pointer. (move pointer to next location)

write next: Append to end of the file (write and update the pointer)

rewind or reset: to reset the file from beginning

 Access Methods
2. Direct Access: Or Relative access
• A file is made up of fixed length logical records that allow
programs to read and write records rapidly in no particular
order.
• For Direct Access, File is a numbered sequence of blocks or
records.

read n
write n
position to n (jump to record n)
read next
write next

n = relative block number

3.Indexed Access

• Index is created for file.

• Index contain pointers for various blocks of a file.

• To find the record in the file, search the index and then use the
pointer to access the file directly and to find the desired record.

• An indexed file is a computer file with an index that allows

easy random access to any record given its file key.

• The key must be such that it uniquely identifies a record.

• A relative file is a file in which each record is identified by its

ordinal position in the file 
Example of Index and Relative Files

Example of Index and Relative Files

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 File Management
Allocation methods
 Contiguous Allocation

 Linked Allocation

 Indexed Allocation

Free-Space Management
 Allocation Methods
• It is the mechanism of keeping track of which disk blocks
go which files

• Main Issue is: how to allocate space to these files so that

disk space is utilized effectively and file can be accessed
quickly.

• There are three major methods of storing files on disks:

– Contiguous
– Linked
– Indexed
 1. Contiguous Allocation
• Store each file as a contiguous block of data on the disk.

• Performance is very fast

- Reading successive blocks of the same file generally
requires no movement of the disk heads

• It is easy to implement

• Contiguous allocation of a file is defined by the disk

address and length of first block.
Contiguous Allocation
 Contiguous Allocation
• Problems can arise:

– Finding space for a new file

– When files grow

– If the exact size of a file is

unknown at creation time

– Suffers from problem of

external fragmentation.

– Difficult to know how much

space is needed for a file
 2. Linked Allocation
• Each file is a linked list of disk blocks
• Disk blocks can be scattered any where in disk
• Directory contains a pointer to first and last block of the file.
• Exp: if file of 5 blocks might start at block 9, continue at block
16, then block 1, block 10 and finally block 25.
• Each block contains a pointer to next block.
• If each block is 512 bytes and disk address requires 4 bytes
then user see block of 508 bytes
• To create a new file , create a new entry in directory
• Each directory has an entry as a pointer to first disk block of
file.
• Pointer is initialized to NIL and size / data part is set to 0
 Linked Allocation
• Disk files can be stored as linked lists
• Linked allocation does not require pre-known file
sizes and allows files to grow dynamically at any time.

Drawback
• It is efficient for sequential access files
• To find ith block of a file, we must start at the beginning of
that file and follow the pointers until we go to ith block.
• Requires extra space for pointers

• Problem with linked allocation is reliability:

– If a pointer is lost or damaged
Linked Allocation
 File Allocation Table
• Used by DOS
• It is a variation of linked
allocation
• All the links are stored in
a separate table at the
beginning of the disk.
• The benefit of this
approach is that the FAT
table can be cached in
memory, and improving
random access speeds.
 3. Indexed Allocation
• Indexed Allocation combines all of the indexes for
accessing file in a file.

• Create a table of indexes

• Index file contains pointers to blocks.

• Bring all the pointers together into one location : Index Block

• Each ith entry in index block points to ith block of the file

• Create index of linked locations

• Indexed allocation support Direct Access.

 Indexed Allocation
• Advantages:
– Any free space on the disk can be used for allocation
– Removes external fragmentation

• Disadvantages:
– If index block is small, it will not be able to hold enough
pointers
– Entire index will have to be kept in main memory to
make it work
Indexed Allocation
Approaches to implement Index Block
• For large files several indexes can be combined and
maintained.

• The first index block contains:

– Header information
– First N block addresses
– Pointer to linked index blocks.

• Multi-Level Index - 

index block contains  pointers to secondary index blocks

 which further contain pointers to the actual data blocks.
Approaches to implement Index Block
• Combined Scheme - 
• pointers provide access to more data blocks
• The advantage of this scheme:
– for small files the data blocks are readily accessible
Free Space Management
 Free Space Management
• Process of looking after and managing unused blocks of
disk
• OS maintains free space list: which records all blocks
that are not allocated to any file

• Methods to implement free space list:

• Bit Map or Bit Vector
• Linked List
• Grouping
• Counting
 Bit Map or Bit Vector

• A Bitmap or Bit Vector is series or

collection of bits where each bit
corresponds to a disk block.

• The bit can take two values: 0 and 1: 0

indicates that the block is allocated and 1
indicates a free block

•  Figure 1 (where green blocks are

allocated) can be represented by a bitmap
of 16 bits as: 0000111000000110.
 Bit Map or Bit Vector
• Find the location of the first free block.

• (number of bits per word) x (number of 0-value words) + offset of first 1 bit.
Linked List
 Linked List
• Linked list of all the free blocks is maintained
• First free block in the list can be pointed by the head
pointer

• Disadvantage: Traversing is time consuming

 Grouping
• This approach stores the address of the free blocks in the first
free block.
• The first free block stores the address of some, say n free
blocks.
• Out of these n blocks, the first n-1 blocks are actually free and
the last block contains the address of next free n blocks.
 Counting
• This approach stores the address of the first free disk block and
a number n of free contiguous disk blocks that follow the first
block.
•
Every entry in the list would contain:
 Address of first free disk block
 A number n
Implementing File-System
 File System Structure
• File System resides on Secondary Storage

• Disk provides bulk storage on which a file system resides

• To improve I/O efficiency, I/O transfers between

memory and disk are performed in units of blocks.

• File system has 2 design problems:

– a) Defining How the file system should look to user
– b) Create an algorithm and data structure to map
the logical file system to physical file system.
Logical File System
contains info. Meta Data,
and manages file
structure
File Control Block
 File System Implementation
• On disk, file System may contain information about
– a) Boot Control Block: Contains info. Needed by the
system to boot an OS. This block is empty if there is no
OS.
– b) Volume Control Block: Contain partition details:
• No. of blocks in partition
• Size of blocks
• Block pointers etc.
– c) Directory Structure: Used to organize files
– d) File Control Block: Contains info. About file:
• File Permissions
• Modification dates
• File owner, File size and Pointers
In-memory file-system structures. (a) File open. (b) File read.
 UNIT –IV (PART-II)
Information management
•Files Concept and Systems

•File Implementation (Allocation methods)

– Contiguous Allocation

– Linked Allocation

– Indexed Allocation

•Free-Space Management

•File System Implementation

•Directory structures

•Directory implementation
– linear list
 Directory Structure
• A collection of nodes containing information about all files.

Directory

Files
F1 F2 F4
F3
Fn

Both the directory structure and the files reside on disk.

Backups of these two structures are kept on tapes.
44
 Operations Performed on Directory
Directory: collection of files or directories
• A Symbol Table that translates file names into their directory
entry.

Operations:
• Search for a file
• Create a file
• Delete a file
• List a directory
• Rename a file
• Traverse the file system : Search all directories/ sub directories
and files
 Directory Schemes
1. Single Level Directory
One directory many files

Single-Level Directory

Easy to support and understand.

Disadvantage:
Limitation:
When number of files increases or when the system has more than one user,
1.then
Difficult
Namingtoproblem
remember the
occurs. Allname of files
files should when
have files
unique increases
names.
2. Single directory for all users
3. File names created by different users should be different.
 Two Level
• 2. Two level directory, each user has his own user file directory(UFD).

• UFDs have the similar structure, but each lists files of a single user.
 Tree Structure
• Users can create their sub directories to manage the files.
• Three has Root directory and files have unique file names
 Acyclic-Graph Directories
• Multiple users can Have shared subdirectories and files
• Users have their own working directory and may have
one shared directory
• Shared subdirectory created by one user in one directory is
automatically visible to all users sharing that directory.
• Shared directory or file may exist at multiple places
simultaneously
• Because of sharing, a file may have multiple absolute
paths
• So different names can refer to same file
 Acyclic-Graph Directories
• These kind of directory graphs can be made using links.
• Links can either be symbolic (logical) or hard link
(physical).
• If a file gets deleted then,
– In case of soft link , the file just gets deleted, and we are left with a
dangling pointers.

– In case of hard link, the actual file will be deleted only if all the
references to it gets deleted.
Acyclic-Graph Directories
 General Graph Directories

• Cycles are allowed within a directory structure where

multiple directories can be derived from more than one
parent directory.

• The main problem with this kind of directory structure is to

calculate the total size or space that has been taken by
the files and directories.
 General Graph Directories
• Advantages: 
• It allows cycles.
• It is more flexible than other directory's structure.

• Disadvantages:
• It is more costly than others.
• It needs garbage collection. 
 General Graph Directories
• There can be cycle in the directory arrangement

General Graph Directory

Directory Implementation
 Directory Implementation
• There is the number of algorithms by using which, the
directories can be implemented.
• The selection of an appropriate directory implementation
algorithm may significantly affect the performance of the
system.
• Directories need to be fast to search, insert, and delete,
with a minimum of wasted disk space.

• Two methods
1. Linear List

2. Hash Table
 Directory Implementation
1. Linear List

• all the files in a directory are maintained as singly lined

list.
• Each file contains the pointers to the data blocks which
are assigned to it and the next file in the directory.
 Directory Implementation
1. Linear List

• When a new file is created, then the entire list is checked

whether the new file name is matching to an existing file
name or not.

• In case, it doesn't exist, the file can be created at the

beginning or at the end.

• Therefore, searching for a unique name is a big concern

because traversing the whole list takes time
 Directory Implementation
2. Hash Table

•This approach uses hash table along with the linked lists.

•A key-value pair for each file in the directory gets

generated and stored in the hash table.

•The key can be determined by applying the hash function

on the file name while the key points to the corresponding
file stored in the directory.
 Directory Implementation
2. Hash Table

•This approach uses hash table along with the linked lists.

•A key-value pair for each file in the directory gets generated

and stored in the hash table.

•The key can be determined by applying the hash function

on the file name while the key points to the corresponding
file stored in the directory.
 Directory Implementation
2. Hash Table
 Directory Implementation
2. Hash Table

•Searching becomes efficient due to the fact that now, entire

list will not be searched on every operating.

•Only hash table entries are checked using the key and if an
entry found then the corresponding file will be fetched using
the value.