The file system and simple terminal I/O are often the first OS features that the developer encounters on any system. Early PC OSs such as MS-DOS did little more than manage files and terminal (or console) I/O, and these resources are also central features of nearly every OS.Chapter 1 introduced the four essential sequential file processing functions:
CreateFile | WriteFile |
ReadFile | CloseHandle |
This chapter explains these and other related functions and also describes character processing and console I/O functions in detail. First, it is necessary to say a few words about the various file systems available and their principal characteristics. In the process, we'll show how to use Unicode wide characters for internationalization. The chapter concludes with an introduction to Windows file and directory management.