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A definition of filesystem from Wikipedia article about filesystems:
Filesystem is used to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, information placed in a storage medium would be one large body of data with no way to tell where one piece of information stops and the next begins. By separating the data into pieces and giving each piece a name, the information is easily isolated and identified.
The majority of operating systems (including Windows, Linux, MacOS) use filesystems with hierarchical structure, and distinguish 2 basic types of organizational units:
An empty, but ready-to-use drive contains at least one directory, the root directory, which is usually denoted as /. When the operating system is installed on the drive, it creates a bunch of required directories and files. The user may create/move/delete her own directories and files on the drive.
/
See the explanation from others:
The location of any file or directory on the drive can be easilly given by its absolute path. It is the sequence of folders you need to traverse from the root folder to the target file/folder.
Many operating systems create folders which have a special meaning (but from a filesystem point of view, there is nothing special about them), e.g.:
/home/janedoe
janedoe
/home/janedoe/desktop
/home/janedoe/documents
Maybe the user may want to create directory /home/janedoe/school/year1/prg to further impose a structure on her school-related materials (school folder), classified by the school year first (year1), and then by individual courses (prg).
/home/janedoe/school/year1/prg
school
year1
prg
All the strings like /home/janedoe/… are absolute paths. The path specified as /home/janedoe/school/year1/prg/contents.txt actually contains instructions how to find a file:
/home/janedoe/…
/home/janedoe/school/year1/prg/contents.txt
home
contents.txt
Credits to the 'be5b33prg' course for this tutorial page.