Introduction

This repository holds a small program for a virtual file system (VFS), which simulates a file system in memory all within a single file.

This project is based on FAT (File Allocation Table) file system principles, albeit very simplified.

Building

Well, you do need CMake, which is pretty standard. Run in bash:

chmod +x build.sh # If you are on Windows, use Git Bash or WSL
./build.sh

Features

• Single directory structure.
• Files can be placed (put), retrieved (get), and deleted.
• Basic listing operation as well as printing the memory usage.
• Some basic error handling as well as a couple of input checks, so you don't create 10TB files by accident.

Usage

After building, run the program:

./vfs

Commands list: [dmake dremove dput dget ddel dls dmap help about]

Upsides and downsides:

• Upsides:

  • Relatively simple.
  • Little abstaction.
  • Single file, no dependencies.
  • Similar to FAT.
  • Directory and FAT are at fixed positions.
  • Able to see the memory usage.
  • External fragmentation is not a problem, due to FAT-like structure.

• Downsides:

  • No subdirectories.
  • Incredibly basic, just bare minimum.
  • Scalability is not considered.
  • Concurrency is not considered.
  • Not suitable for proper OS.
  • Internal fragmentation is a problem, due to fixed-size blocks.
  • File limit (64 files), drive size limit (4KB to 100MB), but can be changed in the code.