Comment by Xelynega
2 months ago
How can you literally interpret the two words "file layout" without it pertaining to the layout of a file?
2 months ago
How can you literally interpret the two words "file layout" without it pertaining to the layout of a file?
We can successfully interpret the two words “guinea pig” without it pertaining to either pigs or things coming from Guinea, so I’m sure this is also possible.
I'm not sure whether 'file' necessarily has to refer to the 'Unix' view of a 'sequence of bytes'? Or just 'some organisational unit of information'? Ie like the stuff you would put into a filing cabinet?
The 'sequence of bytes' view is just one specific level of abstraction. It's not what's actually on disk because of things like compression, encryption and fragmentation.
Database schemas are a different level of abstraction.
DBs can be files on disk though? Besides they're a bit like easy hand rolling powder mix for filesystems. Filesystem entries has properties like filenames and inode numbers and file contents. Databases has columns like emails and membership IDs and their favorite cookies. I don't think "file layout" is an absurd framing.