History
Some early operating systems were capable of handling only tape and disk file systems. These provided the most basic of interfaces with:
- Write, read and position
More coordination such as device allocation and deallocation required the addition of:
- Open and close
As file systems provided more services, more interfaces were defined:
- Metadata management
- File system maintenance
As additional file system types, hierarchy structure and supported media increased, additional features needed some specialized functions:
- Directory management
- Data structure management
- Record management
- Non-data operations
Multi-user systems required APIs for:
- Sharing
- Restricting access
- Encryption
Read more about this topic: File System API
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