Be File System: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 05:16, 16 December 2010

Revision as of 01:46, 20 April 2011

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The '''Be File System''' ('''BFS''', occasionally misnamed as BeFS — the name BeFS is used in the Linux kernel to avoid any confusion with [[Boot File System]]) is the native [[file system]] for the [[BeOS]].

BFS was developed by [[Dominic Giampaolo]] and [[Cyril Meurillon]] over a ten month period, starting in September 1996,<ref name="practical-book">{{cite book | last=Giampaolo | first=Dominic | year=1999 | url=http://www.nobius.org/~dbg/practical-file-system-design.pdf | title=Practical File System Design with the Be File System | publisher=Morgan Kaufmann | isbn=1-55860-497-9 | format=PDF}}</ref> to provide [[BeOS]] with a modern [[64-bit]] capable [[journaling file system]].<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/03/29/windows_on_a_database_sliced/ | title=Windows on a database – sliced and diced by BeOS vets | author=Andrew Orlowski | date=2002-03-29 | publisher=The Register | accessdate=2006-12-09}}</ref> It is [[case sensitive]] and capable of being used on [[floppy]], [[hard disk]]s and read-only media such as [[CD-ROM]]s, although its use on small removable media is not advised, as the file system headers consume from 600KB600 kB to 2MB2 MB, rendering floppy disks virtually useless.

Like its predecessor, OFS (Old Be File System, written by [[Benoit Schillings]], was also called BFS when current),<ref name="bortmaninterview">{{cite web | url=http://www.birdhouse.org/beos/bible/bos/int_schillings.html | title=Benoît Schillings, Software Engineer | author=Henry Bortman | work=The BeOS Bible | accessdate=2006-09-10}}</ref> it includes support for extended file attributes ([[Metadata (computing)|metadata]]) with indexing and querying characteristics to provide functionality similar to that of a [[relational database]].