System and method for providing compatibility between distributed file

Abstract

A system and method facilitating an operating system user's ability to reference objects in a distributed file system having an incompatible namespace. Compatibility is thereby provided between DFS namespaces and operating system pathname syntax not supported in the DFS. A DFS pathname prefix is associated with each drive letter that is attached to a DFS IFS driver. Before an IFS driver is used, an application program issues a command to associate a drive letter with a particular IFS driver. The command issued also carries a DFS pathname prefix within a data buffer. The IFS services the command by validating existence of the DFS pathname prefix, and thereafter stores such prefix into an internal table of the buffer where it is associated with the attached drive letter. File system requests later received by the DFS client IFS driver carrying a pathname containing that drive letter will have their file specifications edited by the DFS code prior to processing. The drive letter in the pathname is replaced by the DFS pathname prefix from the IFS driver's internal table, and operating system slashes in operating system pathname are converted to DFS slashes. The operating system user may thereby reference DFS objects relative to a point in the DFS namespace using the operating system's pathname syntax which the user is more comfortable with.