Hi Everyone, in relation to file systems which are made up of 2 components, directory entries and the file allocations table. Are Directory entries actually part of a folder/directory. If you run CMD and say type in cd\windows it takes you to the windows directory. If you then type dir you will see two directories namely . and ..

<DIR> .
<DIR> ..

Are these the directory entries and are they the directory entries of the file system.

Many Thanks

Mark

Directories are hierarchial and the '.' refers to THIS directory and '..' refers to the parent of THIS.
Both of these are NOT part of the contents of the directory itself, but rather part
of the filesystem control structure which controls the directories.

Without these, relative navigation (eg: cd ..\siblingDir ) would not be possible

Hi Jobeard, thanks for your reply. It is how the "." and ".." are part of the file system I am interested in. Can you or anyone else expand on this,

Cheers
Mark

The '.' and '..' are meant as a shorthand for the current and parent directories. It's just to make the display simpler. So if you change directory to say 'c:\windows' and the type 'dir', the "." refers to 'c:\windows" and the '..' refers to 'c:\'

-- Andy