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1996-10-14
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Chapter Three
Introduction to File Management .17
Files and Directories ...........17
Files ...........................18
Directories .....................18
Introduction to File Management
The theory behind a directory utility such as Directory Opus 5 is quite
simple. Instead of having to struggle with a primitive Command Line
Interface and 'mysterious' AmigaDOS commands, you are presented with an
easy-to-use interface which shows the contents of multiple directories,
and presents the various commands in a manner which makes them much easier
to use. On the screen, you open up one or more 'directory windows' or
file Listers. Into a Lister you can read and display the contents of a
directory from any device or volume accessible by the Amiga. You select
files and/or directories, then manipulate them almost any way you like.
Selected entries can be copied to other Listers, deleted or renamed; text
files can be read, picture files can be viewed, and sound files can be
heard. Directory Opus 5 offers much more than these "barebones" features,
and you will learn more later in this manual.
Files and Directories
The Amiga's DOS (Disk Operating System) deals with two kinds of data
arrangement:- files and directories.
Each file and directory must be given a unique name; within a directory
you cannot have two files, two directories, or a file and a directory with
the same name.
Directory Oups 5 17
Files
Any data you record on a disk is stored in a file. Files contain
information, which may be from a database, from a word processor, from a
painting program, or the entire contents of a program.
The size of a file is expressed in bytes, each byte being equivalent to
one character. Storing the string "Hello" in a file would use five bytes,
since the word "Hello" is five characters long.
Whether a file can be displayed, executed, deleted, edited, or considered
as a script file, depends upon its attributes .
All files have a datestamp which shows the system time and date when the
file was last written to.
Files may also have a comment of up to 79 characters attached to them.
Directories
To store information in a logical manner, files on disks are generally
organised into directories, which are often referred to as drawers. If
you picture a disk as a filing cabinet, with your programs, database files
and pictures as the actual files, then the directories are the drawers of
the filing cabinet. Some of these drawers have further drawers inside
them, called subdirectories, which themselves contain drawers, and so on,
indefinitely.
The directory or subdirectory containing any given subdirectory is known
as its Parent Directory.
The highest level of organisation is the Root Directory. If the
directory is a filing cabinet, then the root directory is the room it
stands in. The route you take along a directory tree to reach a file is
called the path. As you proceed along the path, each branch of the tree
is separated from the next by a forward slash '/'' character.
18 Dorectory Opus 5
For example, on a hard drive named Work, the path to the Directory Opus 5
directory should be Work:Opus5. To refer to the Directory Opus 5 program,
you would use what is called the pathname. This consists of the file's
path followed by the name of the file. For example,
Work:Opus5/DirectoryOpus.
The number of files and subdirectories any given directory can contain is
limited only by the amount of space on the disk.
For a more complete explanation of file structure, please consult the
Amiga Dos and Users Manuals.
Directory Opus 5 19
This page is intentinally blank.
20 Directory Opus 5