What’s a Logical File System?

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A logical file system is a primarily academic concept of a computer file system that attempts to merge traditional structured file systems with a relational database-style interface to create a way for users to locate and process files by defining properties of a file instead of defining an exact path and file name. The resulting logical file system would allow a user to specify known information about a file to essentially query the file system as a relational database where the logical file system could return a single file or a list of matching files to choose from. Some of the challenges presented by a logical file system include accurate weighting properties used to define files, provide intuitive ways to narrow searches, and develop methods for user search queries that are easy to learn, understand, and use. Being a largely searchable file system, most interactions are based on lengthy command-line requests with no graphical user interface (GUI) present. There is no industrial-grade logical file system, with most research limited to a few prototypes, so the actual internal technical workings of such a system vary by implementation.

In most cases, a logical file system is described as a combination of hierarchical file system navigation, as commonly used in most computers, with web-style boolean searches maintaining some sort of relational database of different file properties that can be sought after. The ultimate goal would be to allow a user to use standard command-line functions like “mkdir” or “cd” in more imprecise ways than traditionally used. This would mean that instead of using “cd” to change to a specified directory, the command could be followed by a formula, or query, that the file system runs to find directories that match the given criteria. The result could be a single directory, if the query is specific enough, or it could be a list of many directories that can be further searched.

One of the challenges of implementing a logical file system is the accumulation of the properties used to define files in addition to their file names. If a large batch of photographs, for example, were copied to the file system, the only properties that would be known about the images would be their names and file sizes. Locating a single image among thousands could be difficult if each image wasn’t somehow labeled with some kind of identifier, although some systems compensate for this by allowing a user to assign ownership by creating a file directory in which to place files.

One consideration when implementing a logical file system is the speed required to create new files. In a mostly empty system, this can be quite easy. As the number of files increases, so does the amount of information that the system must store in order to query to find files. This means that as the file system ages, it can suffer a performance loss.

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