FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT

• US 20160314135A1
• Filed: 07/06/2016
• Published: 10/27/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/14/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: GIAMPAOLO, Dominic B., WEISS, Eric A., MCINTYRE, Kristen A., CISLER, Pavel
• Granted Patent: US 10,303,652 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/16 File or folder operations, e.g. details of user interfaces specifically adapted to file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1794 Details of file format conversion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3213 using tickets or tokens, e.g. Kerberos network architectures or network communication protocols for entities authentication using tickets in a packet data network H04L63/0807

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for file system management. In one aspect, a method includes receiving a request at a kernel to perform a file operation on a particular file; identifying a flag bit associated with the file; invoking user space file handler to perform particular action when the flag bit is set; determining whether notification that action has been performed by file handler is received; and allowing the file operation on the file when notification is received.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

by a kernel of a device;

receiving a request to perform an operation on a file;

reading a flag bit from an i-node or from a catalog record, wherein the i-node or the catalog record is associated with the file;

reading a file attribute when the flag bit indicates that special file handling should be performed;

determining, based on the special file handling, that a file content needs to be downloaded before the operation can be performed;

invoking by the kernel a user space file handler to perform a particular action, wherein the particular action comprises;

i) downloading the file content and ii) modifying the file based on the file content to produce a modified file;

determining that the particular action has been performed by the user space file handler; and

allowing the operation to be performed on the modified file.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the operation is a read file operation.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the operation is a modify file operation and the user space file handler copies the file prior to the modify file operation being performed.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein a displayed icon in a particular directory provides an appearance that the file is present on the device.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, from the user space file handler prior to the determining that the particular action has been performed, a request for an extended time to perform the particular action;

and

extending a time for the user space file handler to perform the particular action.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the invoking further comprises:

sending a token to the user space file handler.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the particular action is to be performed according to the token.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

loading the file attribute into a memory when the request is received; and

when the flag bit is set;

accessing the file attribute from the memory to identify the particular action to be performed by the user space file handler.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the file attribute indicates that the file is to be backed up before the operation is performed.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the file attribute identifies a particular user space file handler to be invoked, the particular user space file handler being designated to perform particular operations.

11. A device comprising:

a processor; and

a memory, wherein the memory comprises instructions, that when executed by the processor cause a kernel of the device to;

receive a request to perform an operation on a file;

read a file attribute when a flag bit associated with the file indicates that special file handling should be performed;

determine, based on the file attribute, that a file content needs to be downloaded before the operation can be performed;

invoke, using a token, a user space file handler to perform a particular action, wherein the particular action comprises;

i) downloading the file content and ii) modifying the file based on the file content to produce a modified file;

receive the token back, wherein the received token indicates that the particular action has been performed by the user space file handler; and

allow the operation to be performed on the modified file.

12. The device of claim 11, wherein:

i) the operation is a modify file operation and ii) the file handler copies the file prior to the modify file operation being performed.

13. The device of claim 11, wherein the file attribute indicates that the file is to be backed up before the operation is performed.

14. The device of claim 11, wherein the instructions further cause the kernel to:

identify i-node information for the file, and the i-node information comprises the flag bit.

15. The device of claim 14, wherein the instructions further cause the kernel to:

load the file attribute into the memory when the file operation request is received; and

access the file attribute from the memory to identify the particular action to be performed by the user space file handler.

16. A method comprising:

by a kernel of a computing device;

receiving a request to perform an operation on a file;

reading metadata associated with the file, the metadata indicating whether a prior operation has been performed on the file within a time period;

invoking a user space file handler to perform an action in user space when no prior operation has been performed within the time period;

determining that the action has been performed by the user space file handler; and

allowing the operation to be performed on the file.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the request is a file modification and the particular action is to perform a copy of the file.

18. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

receiving a second request to perform a second operation on the file;

reading second metadata associated with the file, the second metadata indicating whether a second prior operation has been performed on the file within the time period;

determining that the second prior operation has been performed on the file within the time period; and

allowing the second operation to be performed on the file without first performing a second copy of the file.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein the time period is a first time window of a sequence of time windows, and wherein the action is performed on the file once during each time window of the sequence of time windows.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the first time window is an hour block of time.