DESIGN STRATEGIES FOR FILE SYSTEMS
Stuart Madnick · DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) · 1970
The report describes a methodology for the analysis and synthesis of modern general purpose file systems. The two basic concepts developed are (1) establishment of a uniform representation of a file's structure in the form of virtual memory or segmentation and (2) determination of a hierarchy of logical transformations within a file system. These concepts are used together to form a strictly hierarchical organization (after Dijkstra) such that each transformation can be described as a function of its lower neighboring transformation. In a sense, the complex file system is built up by the composition of simple functional transformations. To illustrate the specifics of the design process, a file system is synthesized for an environment including a multi-computer network, structured file directories, and removable volumes.