On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 13:22:05 +0100, Peter wrote:

Richard Porter wrote:


I really hate computers that pretend they're filing systems and
therefore have all the disadvantages of paper-based systems. I call a
directory a directory, not a "folder". Have you ever tried folding one?


I have a problem with the use of directory, referring to the file
structure on a computer. You see a directory is a list of things with
further attributes, i.e. a phone directory, or a office personal
directory etc. In computer speak a directory should refer to the list
of users/systems/etc in the organization/domain/etc... Microsoft have
there Active Directory and there's the equlivents in other OS's such as
LDAP.

True - but...

In OS terms it *is* a directory. Within unix filesystems, a directory
is merely a structured file containing the names and inode-numbers of the file's
data + header section. The inode is a structure which further defines
which logical blocks on the disk random bits of the file are stored. So to
open a file, the OS consults the directory-file to find out where the
actual file lives.

Most other systems (including FAT) work in a similar way. (Let's not get
into Plan9 - I don't know how that works, but it's probably significantly
weird).

So there is a good historic reason why the name came to be, long before
Bill Gates was out of his nappy :-/

Cheers

Timbo