file system

(1) The method for storing and retrieving files on a disk. A file system creates a folder/directory structure, which is essentially an index to the files. It also defines the syntax used to access them (the way the "path" to the file is coded). See path.

File systems dictate how files are named as well as the maximum size of a file or volume. FAT, FAT32 and NTFS are file systems used on PCs, while HFS is used on Macs. Some operating systems support several; for example, Windows 2000 can use FAT32 or NTFS. See hierarchical file system.

(2) A data processing application that manages individual files. It opens, closes, reads and writes the file as a single entity. In a file system, files are related to each other by customized programming (customers to orders, vendors to purchases, etc.). Contrast with a "relational database," which has built-in constructs that can more easily form these relationships. For example, they can be used to join files together and split them apart, all without tedious programming. See relational database and DBMS.

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(operating system)

file system - (FS, or "filesystem") 1. A system for organizing directories and files, generally in terms of how it is implemented in the disk operating system. E.g., "The Macintosh file system is just dandy as long as you don't have to interface it with any other file systems". 2. The collection of files and directories stored on a given drive (floppy drive, hard drive, disk partition, logical drive, RAM drive, etc.). E.g., "mount attaches a named file system to the file system hierarchy at the pathname location directory [...]" -- Unix manual page for "mount(8)". As an extension of this sense, "file system" is sometimes used to refer to the representatation of the file system's organisation (e.g. its file allocation table) as opposed the actual content of the files in the file system. Unix manual page: fs(5), mount(8).