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Content:-

1. Attribute Of File
2. Operation On Files
3. File Accessing Mechanism
4. File Allocation Method
5. System Call

File :- It is an abstract data type.

Attributes of files are as follows :-

a. Name :-The Symbolic file name is the only information that is kept in human
readable form.
b. Identifier :- This is unique tag that is represented by a number which identifies
the file within the file system. It is in form of non-human readable for the file
c. Type :- This is the information about the file which is required for the system
having different types of files.
d. Location :- This information is a pointer to a device and to location of the file
on that device
e. Size :- The current size of file(in bytes, words or block), and possibly the
maximum allowed sizes are included in this attribute.
f. Time, Date and User Identification :- This information may be kept for creation
, last modification and last usage. These data can be useful for the protection
and security.

Operations Performed on Files:-As file is an abstract data type .To define a file
property , we need to define various operations that can be performed on
files.Operations on files includes:

1. Creating a File :- To create a file , two operation is necessary :

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a. Space in the file system must be found for file.
b. An entry for the new file must be made in the directory. The directory entry
records the name of the file and the location in the file system and some
other information.

2. Writing a file:- To write a file, we make a system call specifying both the
name of the file and the information to be written to the file. For the given file
name, system searches the directory to find the location of file. The system
must keep a write pointer to the location in file where the next write is to take
place. Updating of write pointer has been done whenever the write occurs.

3. Reading a File:-To read from file, a system call specifies the file name and
when the next block of the file should be put in the memory. Again, the
directory is search for the associated directory entry and the system needs to
keep a read pointer to the location in the file where the next read is to take
place.

4. Repositioning File:-Repositioning does not involve any actual I/O operation. This
operation is also known as file seek.

5. Deleting a File:- To delete a file, we search the directory for the named file.
Having formed the associated directory entry. We release all file space and
invalidate the directory entry.

6. Truncating a File:- The user may want to erase the content of a file but keep
its attributes. This field allows all attributes to remain unchanged except file
length, rather than forcing user to delete the file.

File Accessing Mechanism:-There are basically three mechanism for accessing the file :

1. Sequential Access
2. Direct Access

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3. Index Access

1. Sequential Access:-It is the simplest access mechanism, in which information

stored in a file are accessed in an order such that one record is processes
after the other. For example , editors and compiler usually access files in this
manner.

The main operations that we perform on a file are read and write . A read
operation reads the next portion of the file and automatically advance a file
pointer , which tracks the I/O location . A write operation appends the end of
the file and advances and the end of newly written material. This method is
based on the tape model of a file works well sequential access device .

Photo ---- 1

2. Direction Access:- It is an alternative method for accession file , which is

based on the disk model of a file , since disks allow random access to any
bock or record of a file .A file is viewed as a numbered sequence of blocks or
records which are read/written in an arbitrary manner i.e. there is no restriction
on the order of reading or writing.

Direct access mechanism is well suited for database management system in

which we have to access a large amount of information. When a query arrives
then we compute the bock containing the answer and then read the block
directly which provides the desired information. File operation in the method
uses block number as a parameter which is provided by the user to the OS.
Block numbers are given w.r.t. the beginning position of the file .

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3. Indexed Access:-In this method an index is created which contains a key filed
and pointers to the various blocks. For finding an entry in the file for a key
value, first the index is searched and then use the pointer to directly access a
file and find the desired entry.

File Allocation Methods:-The space allocation strategy in memory is often closely

related to the efficiency of file accessing. In many cases, many files can be stored on
a particular disk. For a good space allocation strategy to take place various related
and interactive factors are considered such as:

i. Processing speed of sequential access to files, random access to files,

allocation and de allocation of blocks.
ii. The ability to make use of multi-sector and multi-track transfer.
iii. Disk space utilization
iv. Main memory requirement

The major methods of allocating disk space are in widely used :-

1. Contiguous allocation
2. Linked allocation
3. Indexed allocation

Contiguous Allocation :- The contiguous allocation method requires each file to occupy
a set of contiguous address on disk.Linear ordering of disk is defined as disk address.

Accessing a file which has been contiguous allocated is easy. For sequential access,
file system remembers disk address of the last block and when requirement , reads
the next block. Thus, both direct access and sequential access can be supported by
contiguous allocation.

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Dynamic Storage Allocation (An Application of Contiguous Allocation):- Disk can be
viewed as a large array of block. At any given time, Source of these blocks are
allocated to files and others are free. Disk space can be seen as a collection of free
and used segments in which each segment is a contiguous set of disk blocks. A free
segment(or unallocated segment) is called a hole. The dynamic storage allocation
problem is how to satisfy a request of n- size from a list of free holes. There are
many solution this problem . The set of hole is searched to determine which hole is
best to allocate. First-fit, Best-fit and worst-fit are the most common strategies used to
select a free hole from the set of various holes.

First-fit :

Allocate the first hole that Is big enough. Here searching can be started either at the
beginning of the set of holes or where the previous first-fit search ended(Next-fit). We
stop searching when we find large enough free space for free hole.

Best-fit :

Allocation of the smallest hole that is bigenough .Searching of entire list is done
unless the list is kept ordered by size. This strategy produces the smallest left-over
hole.

Worst-fit:

Allocate the largest hole . Again we have search the entire list unless it is keep in a
sorted order by the size. This strategy produces the largest left-over hole, which may
be more useful than the smallest-left over hole obtained in best-fit approach.

These algorithms suffer from external fragmentation simulations have shown that first fit
and best fit strategies are better then worst fit in terms of storage utilization.

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Linked Allocation : There is no external fragmentation with linked allocation. Any free
block on the free space list can be used to satisfy a request since all blocks are
linked together. The major problem with linked allocation is that it can be used only
sequential-access files.

Another Problem of linked association is reliability. Since the files are linked together
by pointer scattered all over the disk. What will happen if a pointer is lost or
damaged.

Indexed Allocation :-In indexed allocation all pointer are brought together into one
location called Index Allocation. Direct access is supported by indexed allocation
without suffering from external fragmentation because any free block on the disk may
satisfy a request for more space .

System Calls:-

To write any user program, we have to go to user mode & to access any
functionality of system we have to go to kernel mode.

We are using user mode and to go to kernel mode system call is used. System call
is a way to shift from user mode to kernel mode i.e. accessing functionality of
systems.

Example:- To access a file or resource we have to do it with the help of kernel i.e.
with the help of OS which is done by system calls .

Example:- To print something , printer Is to be accessed with the help of system call
in kernel (OS) mode.

• Main logical unit in OS is kernel .

• OS has hundreds of system call. Some OS give facility to write system calls
directly but some OS don’t let us do this there we have local libraries like printf
(to print everything ,scanf – they are not the system calls , they are functions
that access system calls)

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Categories of System Calls :-

1. File Related System Calls :-We have a C program & when we are
executing it then it become a process & comes to RAM for execution &
kernel (part of kernel) is also residing in RAM. Now , if process wants to
access a file , then process has to ask kernel to give access of the file .
Process does not have privilege of that file ,so have kernel will generate
system call to access file.

Kernel

Process

RAM

File Related System Calls :-

Open(), Read() , Write() , Close() , Create file etc .

2. Device Related :- If we want to access a device/hardware ex- monitor , printer

. User can’t access directly, it have to take privilege from kernel though system
call.

Device Related System Calls:-Read , Write , Repositioning

3. Information Related System calls:- Process/device attribute information is

accessed by this.

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Ex-
getpid – to know id of a process
getppid – to know id of parents
To access information about process also known as meta data (data related to
data) ex- content inside a file is its data, but information like size, name
,permission , extension etc.
are attributes known as meta data , we can access such information through
information related system calls
Ex – get system time & date.

4. Process Control :-To load a process in main memory we use process control
system calls . Example – load , execute ,abort , Fork , Wait, signal , Allocate
etc.

5. Communication :-Inter process communication ex – pipe() , shmget() – shared

memory , client/delete connection.

Most important System Call :-

Fork() :- In OS,we talk about multiprocessing environment i.e. we want multiple

processes/ task to do at one time , for that we use multithreading or else we can use
fork() system call – which a process creates child process ,parents doing its work &
child doing its work so multi processes environment is created .

fork() system call is created through program control system calls. Ex- In a parent C
program whenever we write fork() then a child of parent is created .

If parent is busy , then a child is created , child has its own id .

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0 - denote chid process

fork() +1 - denote Parent process

-1 - If child is not created

We do not consider this : we assume child is created

• Child process id is 0
• Parent process id is +1

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