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File Storage
Files, as far as the computer is concerned,
are nothing more than a series of zeros and ones. For example this
series:
01001101011010010101101011010101101011010100101101010100101101010101001010,
could be part of a picture, the beginning of a text document or even
part of a video.
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To be able to keep all the information of the file together (so
that part of the video is not mixed with part of the text document)
the computer will store it in its permanent
storage, for example in the computer's hard disk.
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| Together with the contents of the file the computer needs also to
keep the name of the file, how big it is, some dates about it (for
example when it was created, when it was last changed or seen, etc.),
and perhaps some information about what its contents are. |
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By insisting that every file has a name the computer (actually
the operating system) guarantees
that a user will always have a way to refer to this file, and
to assist the user further the computer can give a list of the
names of all the files it has.
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However even with this facility (called the 'directory listing')
a user will not be able to find a file in a list of hundreds,
thousands, or even millions of files. For this, computers allow
the organisation of files into folders (also known as directories).
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To refer therefore to a file a user needs to know the name
of the file, and the folder it belongs to. Where a folder also
belongs to another folder the user will need to specify every
folder a file belongs in, using what is called the 'path' of
a file.
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