Integrated File System Introduction


*TYPE2 directories

The "root" (/), QOpenSys, and user-defined file systems (UDFS) in the integrated file system support the *TYPE2 directory format. The *TYPE2 directory format is an enhancement of the original *TYPE1 directory format. *TYPE2 directories have a different internal structure and different implementation than *TYPE1 directories.

The advantages of *TYPE2 directories are:

*TYPE2 directories improve file system performance over *TYPE1 directories, especially when creating and deleting directories.

*TYPE2 directories are more reliable than *TYPE1 directories. After a system abnormally ends, *TYPE2 directories are completely recovered unless there has been an auxiliary storage failure. *TYPE1 directories may require the use of the Reclaim Storage (RCLSTG) command in order to recover completely.

*TYPE2 directories provide the following added functionality:

  1. *TYPE2 directories support renaming the case of a name in a monocase file system (for example, renaming from A to a).
  2. An object in a *TYPE2 directory can have up to one million links compared to 32,767 links for *TYPE1 directories. This means you can have up to 1 million hard links to a stream file, and a *TYPE2 directory can contain up to 1 million sub-directories.
  3. Using iSeries Navigator, the list of entries are automatically sorted in binary order when you open a directory that has the *TYPE2 format.

Typically, *TYPE2 directories that have less than 350 objects require less auxiliary storage than *TYPE1 directories with the same number of objects. *TYPE2 directories with more than 350 objects are ten percent larger (on average) than *TYPE1 directories.

There are several ways to get *TYPE2 directories on your system:

To determine the directory format for the file systems on your server, use the Convert Directory (CVTDIR) command:

CVTDIR OPTION(*CHECK).

*TYPE2 directories are supported on OS/400 V5R1, but there are some differences from normal *TYPE2 directory support. For more information, see Using *TYPE2 directories in OS/400 V5R1.

For more information about *TYPE2 directories, refer to the following topics:


[ Top of Page | Previous Page | Next Page | Table of Contents | Index ]