Object oriented file system in an object oriented operating system
First Claim
1. A client-extensible object oriented file system in an object oriented operating system, comprising:
- (a) at least one file device for storing and retrieving information;
(b) a processor attached to the file device and having a memory, comprising;
(c) a file system entity base class;
(d) a client-subclassable file class, derived from the file system entity base class and having file member functions and attributes for defining and managing file objects created from the file class, including having means for storing and retrieving information from the file device;
(e) a client-subclassable directory class, derived from the file system entity base class and having directory member functions and attributes for defining and managing directory objects created from the directory class, including a member function for creating a file object from the file class and for associating the created file object with a directory object created from the directory class;
(f) a client-subclassable volume class, derived from the directory class, having volume member functions for controlling the file device;
(g) wherein the file class, the directory class, and the volume class are subclassable in response to a client subclassing request to derive subclasses to supplement functionality of the file system, and wherein member functions of the file class, directory class, and volume class are invocable in response to client invocation requests and attributes of file objects, directory objects, and volume objects are accessible in response to client access requests.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
An object-oriented file system in an object-oriented operating system includes a file system entity class that is subclassed into a volume, directory and file subclass. These classes encapsulate standard file system properties such as name, creation date, and size, as well as standard operations such as create, open, close, and property accessors. Using object-oriented programming, the class properties and operations can easily be modified and extended. Also provided is a convenient and efficient means for searching through the entities, and collecting heterogeneous sets. Further, a category of notification classes is provided for notifying clients when an entity has changed. Still further, user authentication and protection domains are used to protect against unauthorized access. Finally, a means for working with foreign file systems running under different operating systems is provided.
166 Citations
13 Claims
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1. A client-extensible object oriented file system in an object oriented operating system, comprising:
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(a) at least one file device for storing and retrieving information; (b) a processor attached to the file device and having a memory, comprising; (c) a file system entity base class; (d) a client-subclassable file class, derived from the file system entity base class and having file member functions and attributes for defining and managing file objects created from the file class, including having means for storing and retrieving information from the file device; (e) a client-subclassable directory class, derived from the file system entity base class and having directory member functions and attributes for defining and managing directory objects created from the directory class, including a member function for creating a file object from the file class and for associating the created file object with a directory object created from the directory class; (f) a client-subclassable volume class, derived from the directory class, having volume member functions for controlling the file device; (g) wherein the file class, the directory class, and the volume class are subclassable in response to a client subclassing request to derive subclasses to supplement functionality of the file system, and wherein member functions of the file class, directory class, and volume class are invocable in response to client invocation requests and attributes of file objects, directory objects, and volume objects are accessible in response to client access requests. - View Dependent Claims (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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2. The object oriented file system as recited in claim 2, wherein the file system entity base class comprises:
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(a) a member function for retrieving a property attribute representing the file object'"'"'s file system entity kind; and (b) a member function for storing and retrieving a file access control list for a corresponding file system entity object, the file access control list comprising; a set of access permissions; and a plurality of principle/permissions pairs, the permissions specifying the access permissions of the file objects for the corresponding principle; and the file system entity class further having a member function for adding a principle/permissions pair to the file access control list, a member function for removing a principle/permissions pair from the file access control list; and
a member function for retrieving the permissions associated with a principle.
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Specification