What is the "Public" folder and what is it for? What is File and Folder? What is a file and folder definition.
All information, in the form of files, recorded on HDD or any other medium for its storage, reading and processing is located in folders. Folders are also called directories. What is a folder? Figuratively speaking, a folder is such a kind of container for storing other containers with information - . Simplified, you can draw an analogy with a card file, where information is stored in cards. Imagine that cards are files, and folders are boxes with them, in turn, the boxes are stored in cabinets.
A folder (directory or directory) is a location on a media where files or other folders containing files are stored. Those. such a storage system can be quite extensive. The main folder contains another folder or folders, which may contain another folder, and so on. Nested folders are usually called subfolders or subdirectories. Such a system was invented to organize the information stored on the computer's hard drive. All folders have names given by themselves. operating system, the program or yourself if the directory is created by you. You can create a folder in by clicking the right mouse button in the Explorer window or on the desktop. Clicking the button brings up a menu with the intended actions of the user, where you need to select the "create" menu item with the "folder" drop-down submenu.
The base or root of this entire system is the root folder.
What is a root folder?
This is the first and main folder (root) in which all the others are located. It has no name and is denoted by the special character "\". For example, the designation C:\ tells us that this is the root folder of drive C. If you created the My Music directory in the root folder, then its path will look like this - C:\My Music. Suppose that in the folder "My Music" you have created another one called "Rock", where you will store audio files with rock bands, then in this case its path will be - "C:\My Music\Rock. In turn, let's say that you want to sort rock music into groups. In this case, it would be logical to create folders with band names in the Rock subfolder. Thus, we get a chain of nested folders.
What does a folder look like?
In operating system Windows folder indicated by a yellow graphic element in the form of a clerical folder. Icon may vary slightly depending on settings appearance elements.
What is a file- it is, one might say, a unit of information. Indeed, any information on a computer is presented in files. But in order to understand all this, I suggest you look a little deeper into the structure of information storage on a computer.
All information is stored on the hard drive, it is on this part that you store your photos, music, movies, games, documents and other things that are useful to you.
To understand what a file is, I decided to resort to a simple example from life - I always simplify everything, but what, it’s easier to live. As an example, I could take a lot of things. But, your faithful "Picasso", decided to draw an apartment. Well, let's look at the picture and start fantasizing. Do you like to fantasize? It is not only interesting, but also extremely useful and exciting. Only we will not fantasize ourselves, like a prince on a white horse, or a conqueror of dragons, but we will represent our home as a hard drive. The main thing - to the psychiatrist about it neither, nor. And then you can earn a ticket and you know where.
And so, staring at the picture and absorbing useful information:
Now let's imagine that our apartment is a hard drive where data is stored. What do they do when connected? hard drive to the computer - divide it into local disks. This means that each room can be thought of as a local drive. We create a couple of local disks in our head.
Well, have you absorbed it? Then you immediately the second picture:
Here I kind of reinforced your imagination a little visually. To see how many local drives you have, you need to go to " My computer", and there you will see all your disks, the letters and names assigned to them. I sincerely hope that you understand what a local disk is. This is just a piece of your hard disk, you can safely create and delete a local disk on your computer, but about this is not now.
Next, let's take any room, that is, a local disk, and consider it in more detail. In each room there are some items that contain other items. And so, we will take objects containing other objects as folders, and we will name these folders accordingly. Let's take a look:
The "closet" folder contains your lohmans, crystal, documents, jewelry and other rubbish.
Let the "table" folder contain a TV with a built-in DVD player.
The "sofa" folder can contain not only various duvet covers and pillows, but also some more meat, as you, your loved ones, and your pets.
Folder "bedside table" contains video discs, audio discs, newspapers, posters with pictures and do not forget that each kind of this goodness is contained in a separate drawer. And from this we can conclude that each drawer is also a folder containing files.
And lo and behold!!! Now you know what a subfolder is - this is a folder that is located in another folder, yet, it can be called a subfolder. What a great combinator I am!!!
Now, when it became clear to you what a folder is, we are getting close to the question " What is a file?» It seems to me that you have already understood what I am getting at, that we will take all the things that are in the furnishings of the hall as files.
Well, let's go play on the computer?
But everything is really so simple! Files are your pictures, photos, movies, music, text documents, programs consist of one or more files enclosed in a folder. As an example, take a look at the picture above.
Audio CDs are your music files.
Video discs are video files.
Newspapers are text documents.
Posters with a picture - files with pictures.
TV is an executable program file, in this case a video player.
If you wondered about the executable file and about other types of files, you can find this in the next article "".
If you have any difficulties with the article, write to me personally, or leave a comment with a question.
Any information on a disk drive is a file. This type of data can be absolutely anything: music, text, photo, video, and more. File is the area changed on the drive. On the disk, as I said, it can be presented in different forms. The executable program shortcut is also a file.
A text file contains characters with a specific code. There are a maximum of 127 of them, and they do not contain Russian letters or other characters. Such a file is also called an ASCII file.
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Filenames
So, the file name can contain up to 232 characters, after the name there is a dot and the extension type is indicated, for example, “.doc” or “.txt”. The extension usually has 3 characters. By the way, you have probably heard more than once that you can. Read the article if interested.
You can name an object using any language, numbers, and only the following characters:
— _ $ # & ! % () { } ‘ — `
As for the file size, it can be in bytes (at least) and gigabytes. So far, I have not seen a 1 TB file on a standard computer, maybe it's only on servers.
In any operating system, a file has some attributes and properties. In modern operating systems, if you hover over it with the mouse pointer, a small window pops up showing the file type, creation time and size.
The same is true for properties. If you go there, you will see additional information:
- File type;
- An application with which it can be launched;
- Disk location;
- Size;
- Created, modified and when opened.
The "Details" tab contains information about the owner, and some files carry copyright information, such as music or photos. But personal information can be deleted.
File attributes
Windows has the ability to use file attributes. The operation is done in properties. For example, there are the following attributes:
- Only for reading- the file can be opened and viewed, but not changed;
- Hidden- the ability to hide the file. You can see it when the function is enabled.
Also, the file can be archived and indexed for quick access to it. There are compression and encryption attributes. You should compress to save space (in relation to bulk data).
File permissions
In the properties tab "Safety" there are many interesting possibilities. Let's say you have multiple accounts on a PC. You can restrict access to files if you are an administrator. For example, to prohibit or allow modification, viewing, and so on.
To change the rights of a specific user, select it, and then click "Change".
A window will open where you select a user and check the boxes to allow or deny, opposite the parameter.
Interaction with other devices
The file, in addition to being able to be modified or created on the hard drive, can be moved to any other media or operating system. Of course, executing a file anywhere depends on its type. For example, it is unlikely that a Win32 application for Windows will run on Linux. Some executable files, which are full-fledged programs, can interact with other devices, such as printers, scanners, smartphones. Of course, to carry out this operation, you will need not one file, but a whole set.
Directories or folders
I think you know what a folder or directory is - a place where one or more files are stored. If the file is located in some directory, then a path is automatically created and it is said that it is located in such and such a directory. You can create hundreds or thousands of folders and store files in them.
In fact, a folder is also a file with its own type. There are also concepts of subdirectory and superdirectory.
The subdirectory is the D directory under the X directory. The D directory for the X directory is the superdirectory or parent directory.
Folders do not have extensions, and you can name them in the same way as regular files. Some characters are also allowed.
I must say right away that the following characters cannot be used in folder names:
\ / : * ? < > |
The disk itself, in fact, is also only a root directory, and you can already create subfolders on it, but this definition is usually not used, so the folder created on the disk is already the root, and the subdirectories nested in it.
Path to file and directory
When you are in some folder, you probably saw a field in the explorer indicating the path. On the example of Windows 10 I will show. If you went through "This computer" to drive D, then the path will look like this:
This PC > Files (D:)
Click on this box and you will only see this path:
Go to any folder and the path will already be like this:
D:\OpenServer
And so on. Why is this needed? If you are working with command line or the PowerShell utility, then it is desirable to know all the nuances regarding the extensions of the names and locations of files and directories. Of course, now it is much easier to work with the system, but there are times when some problems can only be solved using the command line.
Full file name
It turns out that few people thought about the fact that there is such a thing as a full file name. It's not the name you see under every file. This is the full path to this file from the root directory or drive. For example, the following line is the full filename:
D:\OpenServer\OpenServer.exe
If, for example, the file is located on external media or on an optical disc inserted into the drive, then the principle is the same.
As for the names of files and folders, they will be different on different operating systems. It's about the register. The following folder names on Windows will be the same Papka, papka, PAPKA. IN Linux distributions they will be completely different directories. Same principle for files.
Using File Explorer to Work with Files and Folders
The standard Windows Explorer is somewhat inconvenient and does not always allow you to quickly work with data. A minimum of functions, and the rest you need to find yourself. Now you don't have to worry about it.
For working with files and directories, there are third-party explorers that are superior to the standard version. Here are some of them:
Total Commander- unfortunately no longer supported, but you can use it. One of the best conductors.
Double Commander- similar functionality with the previous explorer. Can be installed on any OS. For now, it's being updated.
FreeCommander – file manager for Windows works well. You can put it on a USB flash drive and work from any computer. - .
There are other conductors, there are a lot of them and it makes no sense to list them all. The ones I mentioned have proven to be excellent solutions.
We are with you, and absolutely everything that is contained on your computer is files and folders. More precisely, folders with files.
A file is information that is presented in a certain form.: video, audio, text file. Let's draw an analogy with the real world. Remember, there were cassettes that we inserted into tape recorders? The analogue of audio cassettes in the computer world is an audio file, a video cassette is a video file, and newspapers, books, magazines are text files.
It's just that they are presented in different formats, which we'll talk about later. We usually store books, magazines, newspapers on shelves, in drawers, or in cabinets. So files are usually stored in folders.
A folder is an object that is specifically designed to store files. To keep order on your computer, you can use virtual boxes-folders, just like in the real world. You can put your files in folders: make a “music” folder and put music files in it, or make a “video” folder and put your videos that you recorded on your digital camera in it, or make a “movies” folder and put there movies that you, for example, downloaded from the Internet.
The same thing can happen with completely different files: books, photographs, and so on. Folders are a great way to organize information and keep your computer organized. I think that you did not have any difficulties with files and folders, everything is clear. In that case, I suggest you go ahead and figure it out. what are programs.
In real life, in order to watch a movie, listen to music, print a photo, you need additional device. For example: to watch movies we can use a DVD player, to listen to music we need a tape recorder, to print a photo we simply cannot do without a printer. In the computer world, tools that help visualize information are also indispensable. These tools are called programs.
There are countless programs, and they all solve their narrow or not very narrow tasks. There are programs designed for video editing, for listening to music, for viewing and editing images. In general, a lot of programs exist. A program is a tool, which means that as soon as there is a need for a new or some more specialized tool, new programs immediately appear.
What is a program in terms of its internal structure? Any program is a set of files and folders, where each file stores a certain amount of information that is needed for the program to work.
How are program files different from our own files? Program files are created by people. Programs are written in special computer programming languages, and the program file contains this code. When a program is installed on a computer, its files are copied to a folder; these folders are also created when the program is installed.
The order in which files and folders are arranged is predetermined by the programmers, the people who created the program. And in no case should we delete or move files from these folders, as this will affect normal work program or may simply disable it. But the files that we create on the computer with the help of programs are our own work of art, and we can delete them, copy them or move them from folder to folder, as much as our heart desires.
What is the difference between file and folder?
What is a file extension, what is it for?
What is an executable file?
What is a hidden file or folder?
To these questions, we, my dear reader, will try to find answers.
What is the difference between file and folder.
A computer is a device that executes a sequence of commands. These commands must somehow be recorded and saved. Files are used to record this information. The file is like a document page. One contains commands, the other contains the data with which it works. In the third, the results of the work are displayed. The program sometimes uses hundreds, and sometimes thousands of different files. In order not to get confused in this variety, we need folders. Just as sheets of documents related to the same project are kept in a folder, files related to the same program are placed in separate folders.
From this we conclude:
a file is a set of information of a certain type, collected and written to disk;
a folder is a place where files can be located.
Why did I write "... may be"? Because the folder can be without files. If we create a folder ourselves, it will be empty. The file can also be empty.
Let's try to create a folder. We will create it on the desktop. To do this, left-click on an empty spot on the desktop.
In the menu that opens, select the item " Create" in the figure it is marked - 1. An additional menu opens in which we select the "Folder" item and click on it with the left mouse button. The default folder name is New Folder. Once created, this name is highlighted and we can immediately change it by typing the name we want. Rice. New folder.
If you leave the default name and create another folder, it will be named New Folder(2) and so on. Agree that if we try to find something, it will be difficult to remember in which folder what was saved after a while. You will have to open each and see the contents.
Therefore, we immediately give a meaningful name to the folder in order to know what is in it. If you did not manage to change the name, and it was saved by default, there is nothing wrong with that. This can be corrected at any time. 
Right-click on the folder and select Rename from the menu that opens. The name of the folder is highlighted, and we can change it, in our example, we will call the folder “Phones”. We go inside the folder, for this we double-click on this folder with the left mouse button and we find ourselves inside the folder. Here we see the inscription "This folder is empty."
File creation
Let's create a file - a text document. We click on an empty place in the folder (in this case, we have it all free) with the left mouse button, select "Create" in the menu, in the next - "Text Document". 
A document is also created - the default name is "New Text Document". Change to "Important Phones", and press the "Enter" key (or simply click on an empty space in the folder).
We have created a new file, a text document. Now it is empty. To open it, double-click on the file with the left mouse button. By default, the file opens in Notepad. We write the text we need. 
If, after we have written everything, try to close the Notepad program, a warning window will appear " Do you want to save changes to the file» 
- followed by the name of the file and the path where it is saved. If you click "Save", "Notepad" closes, the data is saved to our file. If you select the “Do not save” item, the program closes, the changes are not saved. If you select "Cancel", the editing of the document continues.
In order to correctly close the Notepad program after editing the document, it is necessary to press the left mouse button on the menu item "File" in the upper left corner of the window 
, select "Save" in the drop-down submenu. After that "Exit". 
File types
The folder icon (also called "Icon") looks like this - .
Since the contents of the files may vary, the file icons have a greater variety. Icon examples: 
Some files store the texts of documents, others - drawings or photographs, others - music or video. There are executable files - programs. In order for the computer to understand what is in a particular file, there are file extensions. By default, the file extension is hidden. To see file extensions in the operating Windows system 7 you need to press the button 
"Start" - "Control Panel" - 
"Folder Options", Fig. 3, open the "View" tab, in the advanced options, uncheck the item - "Hide extensions for known file types." After that, click the "Apply" button, then "OK".
Everything is easier in Windows 8. In the folder, above the icon icons, there is an action bar with the objects located in this folder. If we click on the triangle next to the folder picture, we have a menu with three options. In order to see the file extensions, you need to click the mouse next to the item of the same name (item - 1). Now we see extensions for our icons (highlighted with frames). It is by these extensions that the computer understands what is in 
file.
Here are the main types of extensions:
txt, rtf, doc, docx - text documents;
xls, xlsx - spreadsheets;
jpg, jpeg, gif, tiff, bmp, png - graphic files;
avi, mp4, mpeg - video files;
mp3, wav - sound files;
com, exe - executable files, programs;
htm, html - web pages;
ppt, pps - electronic presentations.
Depending on the type of file, by double-clicking the mouse, the operating system opens it in a specific program. So a file with the extension .txt opens in notepad, and .doc - in Microsoft Word or, for example, in OpenOffice (alternative free, free office suite). When we have several programs to open a certain type of file, it is possible to open such a file in a program other than the default program. To do this, right-click on the file and select the “Open with…” item in the context menu - select the required program from the list of suggested programs.
You can change the default program for a certain file type. To do this, click Start - Control Panel - Default Programs - File Type Associations ... 
When we select a different application for a file, the icon for the file will also change.
What is an executable
All program files are executable files. Extensions executable files— .com, .exe. Almost all programs are launched by files with these extensions. Another type of executable files has the .bat extension - this is a text file with recorded commands for the operating system.
Hidden files or folders
Important files necessary for the operation of the operating system are hidden from the average user. These files are called system files. We can see these files if we uncheck "Hide protected operating system files" in the Windows 7 folder options menu 
In the figure, number 2 marks system (hidden) folders, number 3 - files. Icons for hidden files and folders are translucent. If these files are damaged, the operating system may stop working, so they are made hidden.
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