Guardian Programmer's Guide

Using the File System
Guardian Programmer’s Guide — 421922-014
2 - 2
Disk Files
product. This guide discusses access to Enscribe files. For details on SQL files, see
the SQL programming manuals.
Types of Enscribe Files
The Enscribe database record manager provides access to and operations on
Enscribe disk files. The Enscribe software is an integral part of the operating system.
It supports the following file types:
•
Key-sequenced files, in which records are placed in ascending sequence based on
a key field. The key field is a part of the record.
•
Relative files, in which records are stored at locations relative to the beginning of
the file.
•
Entry-sequenced files, where records are appended to a file in the order they are
written to the operating system.
•
Unstructured files, in which records are defined by the application. Records are
written to and read from a file using relative byte addresses within the file.
Section 5, Communicating With Disk Files, provides an overview of disk files along with
programming examples of how to access and manipulate disk files. The Enscribe
Programmer’s Guide provides complete details.
Volumes, Subvolumes, and Files
The usable space of a disk (the part that can store files) is called a volume. For
convenience, file names within the same volume that have a common middle part are
treated as a logical group of files or a subvolume. Figure 2-1 shows how the file
name reflects this organization.