ShareWare OnLine 2/ShareWare OnLine Volume 2 (CMS Software)(1993).iso/os2/os2_hpfs.zip/OS2-HPFS.TXT

Text File | 1993-02-16 | 40KB | 668 lines

Here's a technical description of the High Performance Files System
that was posted on the net recently.

 *****  Computer Library Periodicals, Jan 1990 : Doc #14753  *****

Journal:   Microsoft Systems Journal  Sept 1989  v4 n5 p1(13)
           * Full Text COPYRIGHT Microsoft Corp. 1989.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title:     Design goals and implementation of the new High Performance File
           System. (includes related article on B-Trees and B+ Trees)
Author:    Duncan, Roy.

Summary:   The High Performance File System (HPFS) enhancement to OS/2
Version 1.2 solves all the problems of the File Allocation Table (FAT) file
system and is designed to meet the demands expected into the next few
decades.  HPFS not only serves as a way to organize data on random access
block storage devices, but is also a software module that translates
file-oriented requests from applications programs to device drivers.  HPFS is
also an example of an installable file system, which makes it possible to
access several incompatible volume structures on the same OS/2 system
simultaneously.  Excellent throughput is achieved by the use of advanced data
structures such as intelligent caching, read-ahead and write-behind.  Disk
space is managed more economically by the use of sectoring.  HPFS also
includes greatly improved fault tolerance.  Applications programs need only
simple modifications to make use of extended attributes and long filenames.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Descriptors..
Product:   OS-2 Extended Edition 1.2 (Operating system) (product
           enhancement).
Topic:     OS-2
           File Management
           Enhancements
           Data Structures
           Disk Space Allocation
           Sectoring.
Feature:   illustration
           table
           chart.
Caption:   (Comparison of FAT and High Performance File System.)
           (Overall structure of an HPFS volume.)
           (Overall structure of an Fnode.)

Record#:   07 585 454.
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Full Text:

THE HPFS IS A WAY OF ORGANIZING DATA ON A RANDOM ACCESS BLOCK STORAGE DEVICE.
IT IS ALSO A SOFTWARE MODULE THAT TRANSLATES FILE-ORIENTED REQUESTS FROM AN
APPLICATION PROGRAM INTO MORE PRIMITIVE REQUESTS THAT A DEVICE DRIVER CAN
UNDERSTAND.

The High Performance File System (hereafter HPFS), which is making its first
appearance in the OS/2 operating systemVersion 1.2, had its genesis in the
network division of Microsoft and was designed by Gordon Letwin, the chief
architect of the OS/2 operating system.  The HPFS has been designed to meet
the demands of increasingly powerful PCs, fixed disks, and networks for many
years to come and to serve as a suitable platform for object-oriented
languages, applications, and user interfaces.

The HPFS is a complex topic because it incorporates three distinct yet
interrelated file system issues.  First, the HPFS is a way of organizing data
on a random access block storage device. Second, it is a software module that
translates file-oriented requests from an application program into more
primitive requests that a device driver can understand, using a variety of
creative techniques to maximize performance.  Third, the HPFS is a practical
illustration of an important new OS/2 feature known as installable file
systems.

This article introduces the three aspects of the HPFS.  But first, it puts
the HPFS in perspective by reviewing some of the problems that led to the
system's existence.

FAT File System

The so-called FAT file system, which is the file system used in all versions
of the MS-DOS"' operating system to date and in the first two releases of
OS/2' (Versions 1.0 and 1.1), has a dual heritage in Microsoft's earliest
programming language products and the Digital Research(R) CP/M(R) operating
system-software originally written for 8080-based and Z-80-based
microcomputers.  It inherited characteristics from both ancestors that have
progressively tumed into handicaps in this new era of multitasking, protected
mode, virtual memory, and huge fixed disks.

The FAT file system revolves around the File Allocation Table for which it is
named.  Each logical volume has its own FAT, which serves two important
functions: it contains the allocation information for each file on the volume
in the form of linked lists of allocation units (clusters, which are
power-of-2 multiples of sectors) and it indicates which allocation units are
free for assignment to a file that is being created or extended.

The FAT was invented by Bill Gates and Marc McDonald in1977 as a method of
managing disk space in the NCR version of standalone Microsoft* Disk BASIC.
Tim Paterson, at that time an employee of Seattle (R) Computer Products
(SCP), was introduced to the FAT concept when his company shared a booth with
Microsoft at the National Computer Conference in 1979.  Paterson subsequently
incorporated FATs into the file system of 86-DOS, an operating system for
SCP's S-100 bus 8086 CPU boards.  86-DOS was eventually purchased by
Microsoft and became the starting point for MS-DOS2 Version 1.0, which was
released for the original IBM" PC in August 1981.

When the FAT was conceived, it was an excellent solution to disk management,
mainly because the floppy disks on which it was used were rarely larger than
I Mb.  On such di s, the FAT was small enough to be held in memory at all
times, allowing very fast random access to any part of any file.  This proved
far superior to the CP/M method of tracking disk space, in which the
information about the sectors assigned to a file might be spread across many
directory entries, which were in turn scattered randomly throughout the disk
directory.

When applied to fixed disks, however, the FAT began to look more like a bug
than a feature.  It became too large to be held entirely resident and had to
be paged into memory in pieces; this paging resulted in many superfluous disk
head movements as a program was reading through a file and degraded system
throughput.  In addition, because the information about free disk space was
dispersed across many sectors of FAT, it was impractical to allocate file
space contiguously, and file fragmentation became another obstacle to good
performance.  Moreover, the use of relatively large clusters on fixed disks
resulted in a lot of dead space, since an average of one-half cluster was
wasted for each file.  (Some network servers use clusters as large as 64Kb.)

The FAT file system's restrictions on naming files and directories are
inherited from CP/M. When Paterson was writing 86DOS, one of his primary
objectives was to make programs easy to port from CP/M to his new operating
system.  He therefore adopted CP/M's limits on filenames and extensions so
the critical fields of 86-DOS File Control Blocks (FCBs) would look almost
exactly like those of CP/M.  The sizes of the FCB filename and extension
fields were also propagated into the structure of disk directory entries. In
due time, 86-DOS became MSDOS and application programs for MS-DOS
proliferated beyond anyone's wildest dreams.  Since most of the early
programs depended on the structure of FCBs, the 8.3 format for filenames
became irrevocably locked into the system.

During the last couple of years, Microsoft and IBM have made valiant attempts
to prolong the useful life of the FAT file system by lifting the restrictions
on volume sizes, improving allocation strategies, caching pathnames, and
moving tables and buffers into expanded memory.  But these can only be
regarded as temporizing measures, because the fundamental data structures
used by the FAT file system are simply not well suited to large random access
devices.

The HPFS solves the FAT file system problems mentioned here and many others,
but it is not derived in any way from the FAT file system.  The architect of
the HPFS started with a clean sheet of paper and designed a file system that
can take full advantage of a multitasking environment, and that will be able
to cope with any sort of disk device likely to arrive on microcomputers
during the next decade.

HPFS Volume Structure

HPFS volumes are a new partition type-type 7-and can exist on a fixed disk
alongside of the several previously defined FAT partition types.
IBM-compatible HPFS volumes use a sector size of 512 bytes and have a maximum
size of 2199Gb (2" sectors).  Although there is no particular reason why
floppy disks can't be formatted as HPFS volumes, Microsoft plans to stick
with FAT file systems on floppy disks for the foreseeable future.  (This
ensures that users will be able to transport files easily between MS-DOS and
OS/2 systems.)

An HPFS volume has very few fixed structures (Figure 1).  Sectors 0-15 of a
volume (8Kb) are the BootBlock and contain a volume name, 32-bit volume ID,
and a disk bootstrap program.  The bootstrap is relatively sophisticated (by
MS-DOS standards) and can use the HPFS in a restricted mode to locate and
read the operating system files wherever they might be found.

Sectors 16 and 17 are known as the SuperBlock and the SpareBlock
respectively.  The SuperBlock is only modified by disk maintenance utilities.
It contains pointers to the free space bitmaps, the bad block list, the
directory block band, and the root directory.  It also contains the date that
the volume was last checked out and repaired with CHKDSK/F.  The SpareBlock
contains various flags and pointers that will be discussed later; it is
modified, although infrequently, as the system executes.

The remainder of the disk is divided into 8Mb bands.  Each band has its own
free space bitmap in which a bit represents each sector.  A bit is 0 if the
sector is in use and I if the sector is available.  The bitmaps are located
at the head or tail of a band so that two bitmaps are adjacent between
alternate bands.  This allows the maximum contiguous free space that can be
allocated to a file to be 16Mb.  One band, located at or toward the seek
center of the disk, is called the directory block band and receives special
treatment (more about this later).  Note that the band size is a
characteristic of the current implementation and may be changed in later
versions of the file system.

Files and Fnodes

Every file or directory on an HPFS volume is anchored on a fundamental file
system object called an Fnode (pronounced "eff node").  Each Fnode occupies a
single sector and contains control and access history information used
internally by the file system, extended attributes and access control lists
(more about this later), the length and the first 15 characters of the name
of the associated file or directory, and an allocation structure (Figure 2).
An Fnode is always stored near the file or directory that it represents.

The allocation structure in the Fnode can take several forms, depending on
the size and degree of contiguity of the file or directory.  The HPFS views a
file as a collection of one or more runs or extents of one or more contiguous
sectors.  Each run is symbolized by a pair of doublewords-a 32-bit starting
sector number and a 32-bit length in sectors (this is referred to as
runlength encoding).  From an application program's point of view, the
extents are invisible; the file appears as a seamless stream of bytes.

The space reserved for allocation information in an Fnode can hold pointers
to as many as eight runs of sectors of up to 16Mb each.  (This maximum run
size is a result of the band size and free space bitmap placement only; it is
not an inherent limitation of the file system.) Reasonably small files or
highly contiguous files can therefore be described completely within the
Fnode (Figure 3).

HPFS uses a new method to represent the location of files that are too large
or too fragmented for the Fnode and consist of more than eight runs.  The
Fnode's allocation structure becomes the root for a B+ Tree of allocation
sectors, which in tum contain the actual pointers to the file's sector runs
(see Figure 4 and the sidebar, "BTrees and B+ Trees").  The Fnode's root has
room for 12 elements. Each allocation sector can contain, in addition to
various control information, as many as 40 pointers to sector runs.
Therefore, a two-level allocation B+ Tree can describe a file of 480 (12*40)
sector runs with a theoretical maximum size of 7.68Gb (12*40*16Mb) in the
current implementation (although the 32-bit signed offset parameter for
DosChgFilePtr effectively limits file sizes to 2Gb).

In the unlikely event that a two-level B+ Tree is not sufficient to describe
a highly fragmented file, the file system will introduce additional levels in
the tree as needed.  Allocation sectors in the intermediate levels can hold
as many as 60 internal (nonterminal) B+ Tree nodes, which means that the
descriptive ability of this structure rapidly grows to numbers that are
nearly beyond comprehension.  For example, a threelevel allocation B+ Tree
can describe a file with as many as 28,800 (12*60*40) sector runs.

Run-length encoding and B+ Trees of allocation sectors are a memory-efficient
way to specify a file's size and location, but they have other significant
advantages.  Translating a logical file offset into a sector number is
extremely fast: the file system just needs to traverse the list (or B+ Tree
of lists) of run pointers until it finds the correct range. It can then
identify the sector within the run with a simple calculation.  Run-length
encoding also makes it trivial to extend the file logically if the newly
assigned sector is contiguous with the file's previous last sector; the file
system merely needs to increment the size doubleword of the file's last run
pointer and clear the sector's bit in the appropriate freespace bitmap.

Directories

Directories, like files, are anchored on Fnodes.  A pointe to the Fnode for
the root directory is found in the SuperBlock.  The Fnodes for directories
other than the root are reache through subdirectory entries in their parent
directories.

Directories can grow to any size and are built up from 2Kb directory blocks,
which are allocated as four consecutive sectors on the disk.  The file system
attempts to allocate directory blocks in the directory band, which is located
at or near the seek center of the disk.  Once the directory band is full, the
directory blocks are allocated wherever space is available.

Each 2Kb directory block contains from one to many directory entries.  A
directory entry contains several fields, including time and date stamps, an
Fnode pointer, a usage count for use by disk maintenance programs, the length
of the file or directory name, the name itself, and a B-Tree pointer.  Each
entry begins with a word that contains the length of the entry.  This
provides for a variable amount of flex space at the end of each entry, which
can be used by special versions of the file system and allows the directory
block to be traversed very quickly (Figure 5).

The nuniber of entries in a directory block varies with the length of names.
If the average filename length is 1 3 characters, an average directory block
will hold about 40 entries.  The entries in a directory block are sorted by
the binary lexical order of their name fields (this happens to put them in
alphabetical order for the U.S.  alphabet).  The last entry in a directory
block is a dummy record that marks the end of the block.

When a directory gets too large to be stored in one block, it increases in
size by the addition of 2Kb blocks that are organized as a B-Tree"B-Trees and
B+ Trees").  When searching for a specific name, the file system traverses a
directory block until it either finds a match or finds a name that is
lexically greater than the target.  In the latter case, the file system
extracts the BTree pointer from the entry.  If there is no pointer, the
search failed; otherwise the file system follows the pointer to the next
directory block in the tree and continues the search.

A little back-of-the-envelope arithmetic yields some impressive statistics.
Assuming 40 entries per block, a two-level tree of directory blocks can hold
1640 directory entries and a three-level tree can hold an astonishing 65,640
entries.  In other words, a particular file can be found (or shown not to
exist) in a typical directory of 65,640 files with a maximum of three disk
hits-the actual number of disk accesses depending on cache contents and the
location of the file's name in the directory block B-Tree.  That's quite a
contrast to the FAT file system, where in the worst case more than 4000
sectors would have to be read to establish that a file was or was not present
in a directory containing the same number of files.

The B-Tree directory structure has interesting implications beyond its effect
on open and find operations.  A file creation, renaming, or deletion may
result in a cascade of complex operations, as directory blocks are added or
freed or names are moved from one block to the other to keep the tree
balanced.  In fact, a rename operation could theoretically fail for lack of
disk space even though the file itself is not growing.  In order to avoid
this sort of disaster, the HPFS maintains a small pool of free blocks that
can be drawn from in a directory emergency; a pointer to this pool of free
blocks is stored in the SpareBlock.

Extended Attributes

File attributes are information about a file that is maintained by the
operating system outside the file's overt storage area.  The FAT file system
supports only a few simple attributes (read only, system, hidden, and
archive) that are actually stored as bit flags in the file's directory entry;
these attributes are inspected or modified by special function calls and are
not accessible through the normal file open, read, and write calls.

The HPFS supports the same attributes as the FAT file system for historical
reasons, but it also supports a new form of fileassociated, highly
generalized information called Extended Attributes (EAs).  Each EA is
conceptually similar to an environment variable, taking the form

name- -value

except that the value portion can be either a null-terminated (ASCIIZ) string
or binary data. In OS/2 1.2, each file or directory can have a maximum of
64Kb of EAs attached to it.  This limit may be lifted in a later release of
OS/2.

The storage method for EAs can vary.  If the EAs associated with a given file
or directory are small enough, they will be stored right in the Fnode.  If
the total size of the EAs is too large, they are stored outside the Fnode in
sector runs, and a B+ Tree of allocation sectors can be created to describe
the runs.  If a single EA gets too large, it can be pushed outside the Fnode
into a B+ Tree of its own.

The kernel API functions DosQFileInfo and DosSetFileInfo have been expanded
with new information levels that allow application programs to manipulate
extended attributes for files.  The new functions DosQPathInfo and
DosSetPathInfo are used to read or write the EAs associated with arbitrary
pathnames.  An application program can either ask for the value of a specific
EA (supplying a name to be matched) or can obtain all of the EAs for the file
or directory at once.

Although application programs can begin to take advantage of EAs as soon as
the HPFS is released, support for EAs is an essential component in
Microsoft's long-range plans for object-oriented file systems, Information of
almost any type can be stored in EAs, ranging from the name of the
application that owns the file to names of dependent files to icons to
executable code.  As the HPFS evolves, its facilities for manipulating EAs
are likely to become much more sophisticated.  It's easy to imagine, for
example, that in future versions the API might be extended with EA functions
that are analogous to DosFindFirst and DosFindNext and EA data might get
organized into B -Trees.

I should note here that in addition to EAs, the LAN Manager version of HPFS
will support another class of file-associated information called Access
Control Lists (ACLs).  ACLs have the same general appearance as EAs and are
manipulated in a similar manner, but they are used to store access rights,
passwords, and other information of interest in a networking multiuser
environment.

Installable File Systems

Support for installable file system has been one of the most eagerly
anticipated features of OS/2 Version 1.2.  It will make it possible to access
multiple incompatible volume structures-FAT, HPFS, CD ROM, and perhaps even
UNIX(R)--on the same OS/2 system at the same time, will simplify the life of
network implementors, and will open the door to rapid file system evolution
and innovation.  Installable file systems are, however, only relevant to the
HPFS insofar as they make use of the HPFS optional.  The FAT file system is
still embedded in the OS/2 kernel, as it was in OS/2 1.0 and 1.1, and will
remain there as the compatibility file system for some time to come.

An installable file system driver (FSD) is analogous in many ways to a device
driver.  An FSD resides on the disk in a file that is structured like a
dynamic-link library (DLL), typically with a SYS or IFS extension, and is
loaded during system initialization by IFS= statements in the CONFIG.SYS
file.  IFS= directives are processed in the order they are encountered and
are also sensitive to the order of DEVICE= statements for device drivers.
This lets you load a device driver for a nonstandard device, load a file
system driver from a volume on that device, and so on.

Once an FSD is installed and initialized, the kernel communicates with it in
terms of logical requests for file opens, reads, writes, seeks, closes, and
so on.  The FSD translates these requests-using control structures and tables
found on the volume itself-into requests for sector reads and writes for
which it can call special kemel entry points called File System Helpers
(FsHlps).  The kemel passes the demands for sector 1/0 to the appropriate
device driver and retums the results to the FSD (Figure 6).

The procedure used by the operating system to associate volumes with FSDs is
called dynamic mounting and works as follows.  Whenever a volume is first
accessed, or after it has been locked for direct access and then unlocked
(for example, by a FORMAT operation), OS/2 presents identifying information
from the volume to each of the FSDs in tum until one of them recognizes the
information.  When an FSD claims the volume, the volume is mounted and all
subsequent file 1/0 requests for the volume are routed to that FSD.

Performance Issues

The HPFS attacks potential bottlenecks in disk throughput at multiple levels.
It uses advanced data structures, contiguous sector allocation, intelligent
caching, read-ahead, and deferred writes in order to boost performance.

First, the HPFS matches its data structures to the task at hand:
sophisticated data structures (B-Trees and B+ Trees) for fast random access
to filenames, directory names, and lists of sectors allocated to files or
directories, and simple compact data structures (bitmaps) for locating chunks
of free space of the appropriate size.  The routines that manipulate these
data structures are written in assembly language and have been painstakingly
tuned, with special focus on the routines that search the freespace bitmaps
for patterns of set bits (unused sectors).

Next, the HPFS's main goal -its prime directive, if you will- is to assign
consecutive sectors to files whenever possible.  The time required to move
the disk's read/write head from one track to another far outweighs the other
possible delays, so the HPFS works hard to avoid or minimize such head
movements by allocating file space contiguously and by keeping control
structures such as Fnodes and freespace bitmaps near the things they control.
Highly contiguous files also help the file system make fewer requests of the
disk driver for more sectors at a time, allow the disk driver to exploit the
multisector transfer capabilities of the disk controller, and reduce the
number of disk completion interrupts that must be serviced.

Of course, trying to keep files from becoming fragmented in a multitasking
system in which many files are being updated concurrently is no easy chore.
One strategy the HPFS uses is to scatter newly created files across the
disk-in separate bands, if possible-so that the sectors allocated to the
files as they are extended will not be interleaved.  Another strategy is to
preallocate approximately 4Kb of contiguous space to the file each time it
must be extended and give back any excess when the file is closed.

If an application knows the ultimate size of a new file in advance, it can
assist the file system by specifying an initial file allocation when it
creates the file.  The system will then search all the free space bitmaps to
find a run of consecutive sec tors large enough to hold the file.  That
failing, it will search for two runs that are half the size of the file, and
so on.

The HPFS relies on several different kinds of caching to minimize the number
of physical disk transfers it must request.  Naturally, it caches sectors, as
did the FAT file system.  But unlike the FAT file system, the HPFS can manage
very large caches efficiently and adjusts sector caching on a perhandle basis
to the manner in which a file is used.  The HPFS also caches pathnames and
directories, transforming disk directory entries into an even more compact
and efficient inmemory representation.

Another technique that the HPFS uses to improve performance is to preread
data it believes the program is likely to need.  For example, when a file is
opened, the file system will preread and cache the Fnode and the first few
sectors of the file's contents. If the file is an executable program or the
history information in the file's Fnode shows that an open operation has
typically been followed by an immediate sequential read of the entire file,
the file system will preread and cache much more of the file's contents.
When a program issues relatively small read requests, the file system always
fetches data from the file in 2Kb chunks and caches the excess, allowing most
read operations to be satisfied from the cache.

Finally, the OS/2 operating system's support for multitasking makes it
possible for the HPFS to rely heavity on lazy writes (sometimes called
deferred writes or write behind) to improve performance.  When a program
requests a disk write, the data is placed in the cache and the cache buffer
is flagged as dirty (that is, inconsistent with the state of the data on
disk).  When the disk becomes idle or the cache becomes saturated with dirty
buffers, the file system uses a captive thread from a daemon process to write
the buffers to disk, starting with the oldest data.

In general, lazy writes mean that programs run faster because their read
requests will almost never be stalled waiting for a write request to
complete.  For programs that repeatedly read, modify, and write a small
working set of records, it also means that many unnecessary or redundant
physical disk writes may be avoided.  Lazy writes have their dangers, of
course, so a program can defeat them on a per-handle basis by setting the
writethrough flag in the OpenMode parameter for DosOpen, or it can commit
data to disk on a perhandle basis with the DosBufReset function.

Fault Tolerance

The HPFS's extensive use of lazy writes makes it imperative for the HPFS to
be able to recover gracefully from write errors under any but the most dire
circumstances.  After all, by the time a write is known to have failed, the
application has long since gone on its way under the illusion that it has
safely shipped the data into disk storage.  The errors may be detected by the
hardware (such as a "sector not found" error returned by the disk adapter),
or they may be detected by the disk driver in spite of the hardware during a
read-after-write verification of the data.

The primary mechanism for handling write errors is called a hotfix.  When an
error is detected, the file system takes a free block out of a reserved
hotfix pool, writes the data to that block, and updates the hotfix map.  (The
hotfix map is simply a series of pairs of doublewords, with each pair
containing the number of a bad sector associated with the number of its
hotfix replacement.  A pointer to the hotfix map is maintained in the
SpareBlock.) A copy of the hotfix map is t written to disk, and a waming
message is displayed to let the user know that all is not well with the disk
device.

Each time the file system requests a sector read or write from the disk
driver, it scans the hotfix map and replaces any bad sector numbers with the
corresponding good sector holding the actual data. This lookaside translation
of sector numbers is not as expensive as it sounds, since the hotfix list
need only be scanned when a sector is physically read or written, not each
time it is accessed in the cache.

One of CHKDSK's duties is to empty the hotfix map.  For each replacement
block on the hotfix map, it allocates a new sector that is in a favorable
location for the file that owns the data, moves the data from the hotfix
block to the newly allocated sector, and updates the file's allocation
information (which may involve rebalancing allocation trees and other
elaborate operations).  It then adds the bad sector to the bad block list,
releases the replacement sector back to the hotfix pool, deletes the hotfix
entry from the hotfix map, and writes the updated hotfix map to disk.

Of course, write errors that can be detected and fixed on the fly are not the
only calamity that can befall a file system.  The HPFS designers also had to
consider the inevitable damage to be wreaked by power failures, program
crashes, malicious viruses and Trojan horses, and those users who tum off the
machine without selecting Shutdown in the Presentation Manager Shell.
(Shutdown notifies the file system to flush the disk cache, update
directories, and do whatever else is necessary to bring the disk to a
consistent state.)

The HPFS defends itself against the user who is too abrupt with the Big Red
Switch by maintaining a Dirty FS flag in the SpareBlock of each HPFS volume.
The flag is only cleared when all files on the volume have been closed and
all dirty buffers in the cache have been written out or, in the case of the
boot volume (since OS2.INI and the swap file are never closed), when Shutdown
has been selected and has completed its work.

During the OS/2 boot sequence, the file system inspects the DirtyFS flag on
each HPFS volume and, if the flag is set, will not allow further access to
that volume until CHKDSK has been run. If the DirtyFS flag is set on the boot
volume, the system will refuse to boot; the user must boot OS/2 in
maintenance mode from a diskette and run CHKDSK to check and possibly repair
the boot volume.

In the event of a truly major catastrophe, such as loss of the SuperBlock or
the root directory, the HPFS is designed to give data recovery the best
possible chance of success.  Every type of crucial file object-including
Fnodes, allocation sectors, and directory blocks-is doubly linked to both its
parent and its children and contains a unique 32-bit signature.  Fnodes also
contain the initial portion of the name of their file or directory.
Consequently, CHKDSK can rebuild an entire volume by methodically scanning
the disk for Fnodes, allocation sectors, and directory blocks, using them to
reconstruct the files and directories and finally regenerating the freespace
bitmaps.

Application Programs and the HPFS

Each of the OS/2 releases thus far have carried with them a major
discontinuity for application programmers who learned their trade in the
MS-DOS environment.  In OS/2 1.0, such programmers were faced for the first
time with virtual memory, multitasking, interprocess communications, and the
protected mode restrictions on addressing and direct control of the hardware
and were challenged to master powerful new concepts such as threading and
dynamic linking. In OS/2 Version 1.1, the stakes were raised even further.
Programmers were offered a powerful hardware-independent graphical user
interface but had to restructure their applications drastically for an
event-driven environment based on objects and message passing.

In OS/2 Version 1.2, it is time for many of the file-oriented programming
habits and assumptions carried forward from the MS-DOS environment to fall by
the wayside. An application that wishes to take full advantage of the HPFS
must allow for long, free-form, mixed-case filenames and paths with few
restrictions on punctuation and must be sensitive to the presence of EAs and
ACLs.  After all, if EAs are to be of any use, it won't suffice for
applications to update a file by renaming the old file and creating a new one
without also copying the EAs.

But the necessary changes for OS/2 Version 1.2 are not tricky to make.  A new
API function, DosCopy, helps applications create backups-it essentially
duplicates an existing file together with its EAs.  EAs can also be
manipulated explicitly with DosQFileInfo, DosSetFileInfo, DosQPathInfo, and
DosSetPathInfo.  A program should call DosQSysInfo at run time to find the
maximum possible path length for the system, and ensure that all buffers used
by DosChDir, DosQCurDir, and related functions are sufficiently large.
Similarly, the buffers used by DosOpen, DosMove, D o s G e t M o d N a m e ,
DosFindFirst, DosFindNext, and like functions must allow for longer
filenames.  Any logic that folds cases in filenames or tests for the
occurrence of only one dot delimiter in a filename must be rethought or
eliminated

The other changes in the API will not affect the average application.  The
functions DosQFileInfo, DosFindFirst, and DosFindNext now retum all three
sets of times and dates (created, last accessed, last modified) for a file on
an HPFS volume, but few programs are concerned with time and date stamps
anyway.  DosQFsInfo is used to obtain volume labels or disk characteristics
just as before, and the use of DosSetFsInfo for volume labels is unchanged.
There are a few totally new API functions such as DosFsCtl (analogous to
DosDev IOCtl but used for communication between an application and an FSD),
DosFsAttach (a sort of explicit mount call), and DosQFsAttach (determines
which FSD owns a volume); these are intended mainly for use by disk utility
programs.

In order to prevent old OS/2 applications and MS-DOS applications running in
the DOS box from inadvertently damaging HPDS files, a new flag bit has been
defined in the EXE file header that indicates whether an application is
HPFS-aware.  If this bit is not set, the application will only be able to
search for, open, or create files on HPFS volumes that are compatible with
the FAT file system's 8.3 naming conventions.  If the bit is set, OS/2 allows
access to all files on an HPFS volume, because it assumes that the program
knows how to handle long, free-form filenames and will take the
responsibility of conserving a file's EAs and ACLs.

Summary

The HPFS solves all of the historical problems of the FAT file system .It
achieves excellent throughput even in extreme cases-many very small files or
a few very large files-by means of advanced data structures and techniques
such as intelligent caching, read-ahead, and write-behind. Disk space is used
economically because it is managed on a sector basis.  Existing application
programs will need modification to take advantage of the HPFS's support for
extended attributes and long filenames, but these changes will not be
difficult.  All application programs will benefit from the HPFS's improved
performance and decreased CPU use whether they are modified or not.  This
article is based on a prerelease version of the HPFS that was still
undergoing modification and tuning.  therefore, the final release of the HPFS
may differ in some details from the description given here--Ed.

B- Trees and B+ Trees

Most programmers are at least passingly familiar with the data structure
known as a binary tree.  Binary trees are a technique for imposing a logical
ordering on a collection of data items by means of pointers, without regard
to the physical order of the data.

In a simple binary tree, each node contains some data, including a key value
that determines the node's logical position in the tree, as well as pointers
to the node's left and right subtrees. The node that begins the tree is known
as the root; the nodes that sit at the ends of the tree's branches are
sometimes called the leaves.

To find a particular piece of data, the binary tree is traversed from the
root, At each node, the desired key is compared with the node's key; if they
don't match, one branch of the node's subtree or another is selected based on
whether the desired key is less than or greater than the node's key.  This
process continues until a match is found or an empty subtree is encountered
(see Figure A).

Such simple binary trees, although easy to understand and implement, have
disadvantages in practice.  If keys are not well distributed or are added to
the tree in a non-random fashion, the tree can become quite asymmetric,
leading to wide variations in tree traversal times.

In order to make access times uniform, many programmers prefer a particular
type of balanced tree known as a B-Tree.  For the purposes of this
discussion, the important points about a B-Tree are that data is stored in
all nodes, more than one data item might be stored in a node, and all of the
branches of the tree are of identical length (see Figure B).

The worst-case behavior of a B-Tree is predictable and much better than that
of a simple binary tree, but the maintenance of a B-Tree is correspondingly
more complex.  Adding a new data item, changing a key value, or deleting a
data item may result in the splitting or merging of a node, which in tum
forces a cascade of other operations on the tree to rebalance it.

A B+ Tree is a specialized form of B-Tree that has two types of nodes:
internal which only point to other nodes, and external, which contain the
actual data (see Figure C).

The advantage of a B+ Tree over a B- Tree is that the internal nodes of the
B+ Tree can hold many more decision values than the intermediate-level nodes
of a B-Tree, so the fan out of the tree is faster and the average length of a
branch is shorter.  This makes up for the fact that you must always follow a
B+ Tree branch to its end to get the data for which you are looking, whereas
in a B-Tree you may discover the data at an intermediate node or even at the
root.


--
Robert Kelley Cook     [e-mail]
Univ. of Notre Dame
Physics Dept.         If you think these are ND opinions, speak to the pope!