EECS 1520 Study Guide - Final Guide: Data File, Binary File, Text File

• School: York University
• Department: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
• Course: EECS 1520
• Professor: John Hofbauer

Document Summary

File: a named collection of related data, smallest amount of info that can be written to secondary storage, sequence of bits. File system: logical view that an operating system provides so that users can manage information as a collection of files. Text file: a file in which the bytes of data are organized as characters from the ascii or unicode character sets. Binary file: a file that contains data in a specific format, requiring interpretation. Implied that information in a text fire is not stored as binary data, which is why the terms text file and binary file are misleading. All information on a computer is stored in binary digits (8/16 bits) Sequential access: information in the file is processed in order and read and write operations move the current file pointer as far as needed to read or write the data. The most common file access technique, and the simplest to implement.