JPH0511987A - Application program starting method - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To eliminate the troublesome job of specifying each data file to be used and then opening it, one by one, for the purpose of starting an application program on an operating system which provides a hierarchial file system. CONSTITUTION:An identifier which identifies to which application program a particular file belongs, is provided as in the case of a data file, to a directory file, and when a file is specified, an application retrieving means 11 and a directory identifying means 12 examine to which application program a directory file belongs. If the specified file is a directory file, the file is developed and the identical data file with the identifier of the application program which the directory file has is extracted by a data file identifying means 14. The extracted data file is opened by a data file opening means, and the retrieved application program is started.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an application program starting method, and more particularly to an application program starting method started under an operating system providing a hierarchical file system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Hierarchical file systems generally have files called directory files in addition to ordinary data files. The directory file stores a data file name or a directory file name instead of storing data. Therefore, the data file is treated as a child of the directory file storing the data file name, and is treated as a grandchild from the directory file storing the directory file name. In the hierarchical file system constructed in this way, a data file generally has an identifier of an application program permitted to start the data file, and it is recognized that the data file is a data file of a specific application program. It is like this.

Conventionally, an application program in the hierarchical file system as described above is activated with a data file open operation after designating a single data file or a plurality of data files having an application program identifier. It is started without performing the open operation, and then the data file is opened.

[0004]

The above-mentioned conventional application program starting method, when starting the application program, indicates one by one the data file to be opened, or starts without giving any instruction, It is necessary to specify the data files to be opened one by one by the file open operation in the application program, and especially when opening multiple data files at the same time and proceeding with the work, it is said that a heavy burden is placed on the operator. I have a problem.

[0005]

According to the application program starting method of the present invention, which application program file is the same as the data file in the application program starting method under the operating system providing the hierarchical file system. A directory file with an identifier that recognizes
Application search means for extracting an application program that uses the specified file from the specified file identifier, and directory recognition means for recognizing whether the file identified by the application program by the application search means is a data file or a directory file. And a data file identifying means for extracting a data file stored in the directory file recognized as a directory file by the directory recognizing means and extracting all data files having an identifier equal to the identifier of the application program of the directory file. , A data file opening hand that opens the child data file extracted by this data file identification means and starts an application program It constituted by having and.

[0006]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Next, the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.
In the embodiment of FIG. 1, a directory file 2 and data files 21, ..., 23 of a hierarchical file system provided by an operating system, an application program starting unit 1 in the operating system and a display device 3 of the system are shown. The starting unit 1 is an application search means 1
1, a directory recognition means 12, a child expansion means 13, a data file identification means 14 and a data file opening means 15.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a hierarchical file system for explaining the processing of FIG. In this example, the application program is a word processor,
The data file is a document file that can be read and written by a word processor, and the word processor recognizes a data file with a file name extension “.sentence” as a readable and writable document file. That is, here, the file extension ".sentence" is used as an identifier of an application program which is a word processor. Therefore, directory files are also allowed to have file extensions. The operator creates a document using a word processor, and the directory file 20 called "Chapter 1. Sentence" is used.
2 and a directory file 203 called "Chapter 2. Sentence"
Are registered using the hierarchical file system with the directory file 201 called "document" as the upper layer. The directory file 202 is composed of three text files, data files 211 to 213,
All text files have the extension ".sentence", so they can be edited with the word processor. The directory file 203 is composed of a data file 214 which is one document file and a data file 215 which is one figure file, and only the data file 214 can be opened by the word processor.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart showing the process of FIG. 1 by taking the hierarchical file system of FIG. 3 as an example. The process of FIG. 1 will be described below with reference to FIG. First, the operator selects the data files 211 to 213 which are document files.
Directory files 2 instead of opening each one
Open operation 02. Then, the application search means 11 causes the specified directory file 202
Is checked to see if there is an application program that treats a file having this extension as a data file (step 101). Since the directory file 202 has the extension “.sentence” and is a data file handled by the word processor, it is determined by the directory recognition means 12 that the application program exists (step 10).
2). In this case it is a directory file, so
Directory file 202 by child expansion means 13
Is expanded to obtain the data files 211 to 213 (step 103). Then, the data file identifying means 14 checks whether the data files 211, ..., 213 are document files having the extension “.sentence” which is a data file of the word processor (step 10).
4) Only the document file having the extension ".sentence" is transmitted to the data file opening means 15 and the document file is actually opened. At this time, the word processor is also activated (step 105). As a result, the opened document file is displayed on the display device 3.

[0010]

As described above, according to the present invention, by providing the identifier of the application program which is allowed to open the data file having the data file name stored in the directory file, only the operation of opening the directory file can be performed. Since all the data files of the application program are opened at the same time when the corresponding application program is started, there is an effect that the burden of file management and file opening operation on the operator can be reduced.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an example of the processing of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a hierarchical file system to which the processing of FIG. 1 is applied.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Application program starting unit 2 Directory file 3 Display device 11 Application program search means 12 Directory recognition means 13 Child expansion means 14 Data file recognition means 15 Data file opening means 21, 22, 23 Data files

Claims (1)

Claim: What is claimed is: 1. An application program starting method under an operating system that provides a hierarchical file system, comprising an identifier for recognizing which application program file is the same as a data file. A directory file and an application search means for extracting an application program that uses that file from the specified file identifier, and this application search means recognizes whether the file for which the application program is identified is a data file or a directory file. Directory recognition means and the data file stored in the directory file recognized as a directory file by this directory recognition means are expanded to this directory Data file identifying means for extracting all data files having an identifier equal to the identifier of the application program of the file, and data file opening means for opening the child data file extracted by the data file identifying means and activating the application program An application program starting method characterized by comprising: