TWI789647B - Mobile device and method capable of earlier determining that a number of files in a directory of an external connected storage device is about to full - Google Patents

Abstract

A method utilized in a mobile device includes: sending a file management command from the mobile device to a flash memory controller; receiving a file entry table from the flash memory controller; calculating a sum of data amounts of a plurality of entries corresponding to file(s) and/or sub-directory(s) in a specific directory; and comparing the sum of data amounts with a specific maximum data amount to determine a message reported to the specific application of the mobile device.

Description

It can be judged earlier that the number of files in the folder of the external storage device will increase Full mobile device and method

The present invention relates to an access mechanism of a flash memory device, in particular to a mobile device and method capable of judging earlier that the number of files in a folder of an external flash memory device is about to be full.

Generally speaking, in the Microsoft Windows file system, the number of files and subfolders in a folder is limited to a specific number, which is the upper limit of the number of files in the folder, that is to say , a folder directory has a limit on the maximum number of files. If the number of files and subfolders has exceeded the upper limit, a new file cannot be created in the folder/folder directory, and it will fail to copy Unexpected error in file. For mobile devices such as smart phones, an external storage device (used as a mobile phone flash drive) is used as an expansion of data storage, and the number of files in a folder of the external storage device also has its upper limit , therefore, if the smart phone performs continuous writing of multiple files of data to the external storage device, it may often occur that the writing fails because the upper limit of the number of files in the folder has been reached (file creation failure )Case.

Therefore one of the objects of the present invention is to provide a mechanism and method for running on a mobile device The method is to report to the application software of the mobile device earlier or earlier, so as to avoid the above-mentioned writing failure (file creation failure) problem.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, it discloses a method running on a mobile device. The mobile device adopts a mobile operating system and is used to externally connect to a storage device through a first communication interface. The storage device is used to connect to a storage device through a second The communication interface is coupled to a computer electronic device, the computer electronic device adopts a computer operating system and is externally connected to the storage device, and the method includes: using a memory to store data of a specific application; and running the specific application and execute a file management operation to: send a file management command corresponding to the file management operation to the flash memory controller from the mobile device through the first communication interface, and the file management operation is used in the storage At least one file or at least one subfolder is created in a specific folder of a file system of the device, and the file management command is used to control the flash memory controller to access at least one storage page of the flash memory To read a file entry comparison table corresponding to the specific folder; receive the file entry comparison table reported by the flash memory controller; find the specific folder according to the reported file entry comparison table Multiple entries currently used by the files and/or subfolders in the file, calculate the sum of the data volumes of the multiple entries; and compare the data volume sum with a specified maximum data volume to determine whether to report a failure message or a success message to the specific application, wherein the specific application is used to display the failure message or the screen of the success message to a user.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, it further discloses a mobile device, which adopts a mobile operating system and is used to externally connect to a storage device through a first communication interface, and the storage device is used to couple to a storage device through a second communication interface. A computer electronic device adopts a computer operating system and is externally connected to the storage device, and the mobile device includes a memory and a processor. Memory is used to store data for a specific application. and the processor is coupled to the memory, and is used to run the specific application and execute a file management operation to: send a file management command corresponding to the file management operation to the fast device from the mobile device through the first communication interface flash memory controller, the The file management operation is used to create at least one file or at least one subfolder in a specific folder of a file system of the storage device, and the file management command is used to control the flash memory controller to access the At least one storage page of the flash memory is used to read a file entry comparison table corresponding to the specific folder; receiving the file entry comparison table reported by the flash memory controller; according to the reported file entry Check the table to find out the multiple entries currently used by the files and/or subfolders in the specific folder, calculate the sum of the data volumes of the multiple entries; and compare the sum of the data volumes with a specific maximum data volume, To decide to report a failure message or a success message to the specific application, wherein the specific application is used to display the failure message or the success message to a user.

100:Mobile

101: Processor

102: memory

130: Computer electronics

150: storage device

151: Flash memory controller

152: flash memory

400: App-specific screen

401, 402: button

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of a mobile device connected to an external storage device according to an embodiment of the present application.

FIG. 2 is a schematic flowchart of the file management operation performed by the processor of the mobile device shown in FIG. 1 .

FIG. 3 is a schematic flowchart of another embodiment of the file management operation performed by the processor of the mobile device shown in FIG. 1 .

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of an embodiment of displaying a prompt message to the user by a specific application run by the mobile device shown in FIG. 1 .

The present invention aims to provide a method that can report the files and sub-data in the folder earlier/earlier before the number of files and sub-data in a folder (or folder directory) of a file system reaches the maximum limit. The mechanism and technical solution that the number of data is about to be full enables the operating system of the mobile device to immediately report the personal data of the files and/or sub-data in the folder when reading, writing and accessing the files in the folder. Whether the number is about to be full or already full, to improve the convenience and convenience of users during operation Mobile devices have the flexibility to use external storage devices.

Please refer to FIG. 1 . FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of a mobile device 100 connected to an external storage device 150 according to an embodiment of the present application. The mobile device 100 includes a processor 101 and a memory 102. The memory 102 is used to store system codes and program codes. The processor 101 is used to execute the system codes and program codes and control access to the storage device 150. The processor 101 of the device 100 is, for example, running on a mobile device operating system, such as Apple's iOS, Google's Android, Research in Motion's BlackBerry OS, Nokia's Symbian, Hawlett-Packard's webOS (Palm OS) and Microsoft's Windows Phone OS, etc., are not the limitations of this case. The storage device 150 is, for example, a flash memory storage device and includes a flash memory controller 151 and a flash memory 152. For example, the storage device 150 can be a solid-state hard drive, a big brother, a flash drive, etc. Not a limitation of this case, the flash memory controller 151 is coupled to the flash memory 152 and used to write, read, and access data in the flash memory 152 according to the instructions of the mobile device 100, so that the storage device The 150 can be used as a data storage extension of the mobile device 100 .

The mobile device 100 is externally coupled to the storage device 150 through a first communication interface of the storage device 150. The first communication interface is, for example, a wired communication interface, such as a communication interface of a lightning connector (but not limited). In addition, the second communication interface A communication interface can also be a wireless communication interface, which is not a limitation of this case.

The storage device 150 further includes a second communication interface, such as a USB interface, through which the storage device 150 can communicate with a computer electronic device, such as a portable A computer electronic device (such as a notebook computer), the electronic device runs a computer operating system of Windows OS or Macintosh OS.

The user can control the mobile device 100 to open and execute a specific application software, such as opening a camera application software or other application software. The memory 102 is used to record and store the data of the specific application software, and the processor 101 will access the memory 102 specific application software data to run the specific application software. When the user's operation such as reading a stored file in the storage device 150 or writing to create a new file, the processor 101 will execute a file management operation (such as fopen) through the specific application, the The file management operation will send a file management command corresponding to the file management operation to the flash memory controller 151 of the storage device 150 from the mobile device 100 through the first communication interface. To execute the operation of creating at least one file or at least one subfolder in a specific folder of the file system of the storage device 150, and the file management command is used to control the flash memory controller 151 to access the flash memory At least one storage page of the body 152 is used to read a file entry table (file entry table) corresponding to the specific folder, or called a folder comparison table (directory table).

Wherein, in the storage device 150 system, the name (filename), extension (extension) and other information of each file and each subfolder contained in a folder are stored in a corresponding A corresponding entry in the folder entry comparison table, each entry actually stores the corresponding data size of one of the above information, for example, 32 bytes (Byte, not limited), that is to say, a file or a Information such as the name of the subfolder needs to occupy, for example, 32 bytes of data size, and if it is a file or subfolder with a long file name, it needs to occupy more bytes of data size, for example, the file name is 8 A file with a character name takes up 32 bytes of data, while a file with a file name of 9 characters takes up 64 bytes of data, and so on. The flash memory 152 of the storage device 150 stores, for example, the content of all entries corresponding to all files and subfolders in a specific folder, that is, all content information of the folder entry comparison table of the specific folder, in One or more storage pages, for example, if a storage page can store 512 bytes of data, the more files and subfolders in the specific folder, the more storage pages will be required to store Such information.

When the flash memory controller 151 receives the file management command sent by the mobile device 100, the flash memory controller 151 moves to the corresponding one or more storage pages according to the address specified by the file management command, to read information about all entries in a folder lookup table for that particular folder content, and return the information content of all the entries to the file management operation of the processor 101 of the mobile device 100 through the first communication interface. The operation of returning the information content of all entries in a folder comparison table corresponding to a folder can also be called a folder entry parsing operation (parse), if more storage pages are needed to record the folder comparison table When the information content of all entries is displayed, the waiting time required to complete the parsing operation will be longer. Generally speaking, the maximum number of files and sub-data that a folder can have is limited. When the number is full, if you still need To create a new file, you can only save the new file to be created in another folder.

In this case, in order to solve the problem of low performance due to the long waiting time required to complete the parsing operation, the technology of this case is that each time the processor 101 runs the specific application software and executes the file management operation to obtain the data returned by the storage device 150 When uploading the content of the folder entry comparison table of the specific folder, the processor 101 will run the file management operation to compare the total data size occupied by all current entries of the folder entry comparison table with a maximum entry limit Corresponding to a data volume size (that is, the maximum data volume limit), determine whether to still store the new file to be created in the specific folder, or choose to store it in another folder or store it in a subfolder , the judgment, saving the file in another folder or creating a subfolder can be done automatically through the user’s preset settings. For example, if the user chooses the default setting or the automatic saving setting, the file management operation is more When it is judged that the number of files in a specific folder is about to be full, it can automatically select a subfolder and create the file in the subfolder, or automatically create a new subfolder and create the file in it. In the new subfolder, or automatically stored in another folder, and when the user chooses to manually set, the file management operation compares and judges that the number of files in a specific folder is about to be full It can be reported to the specific application, so that the specific application can generate a display screen and corresponding buttons to prompt the user and provide the user with input options.

Please refer to FIG. 2 . FIG. 2 is a schematic flowchart of the file management operation performed by the processor 101 of the mobile device 100 shown in FIG. 1 , and the steps are listed below.

In step 205, the processor 101 runs a specific application software to perform a file management operation such as fopen, and the file management operation sends a file management command from the mobile device 100 to the flash memory control of the storage device 150 through the first communication interface device 151, if the first communication interface is wired communication, then at this time the storage device 150 has been connected to the mobile device 100 through the wired communication interface. In addition, when the flash memory controller 151 receives the file management command, the flash memory controller 151 will read out the corresponding one or more storage pages according to the address specified by the file management command. Contents of all entries in the folder comparison table corresponding to the specific folder, and return the contents of all entries to the processor 101 of the mobile device 100 for the file management operation through the first communication interface.

In step 210, the processor 101 of the mobile device 100 will execute the specific file management operation to obtain the content of all the entries of all the files and subfolders in the specific folder, and then calculate the total entries occupied by these The sum of the amount of data, for example, the sum of the amount of data is expressed in bytes (Byte) as a unit, each entry can be called a folder entry, DIR entry or file description block (File Description Block, FDB), and each entry is related to a specific data size, such as 32 bytes, for example, the file name of a file can be stored by using the data size of at least one entry, that is, using at least 32 bytes bytes to store.

A directory table is a file of a specific type, which represents a folder or a folder, and each file or folder stored in the directory table is in the directory The table is represented by an entry with 32 bytes, and each entry records the name, extension, attribute, date and time of a file/folder. of creation), the address of the first cluster of the data of the file/folder and the size of the last file/data, etc., and all the folder comparison tables are stored in a data area of the flash memory of the storage device, for example (one or more storage pages).

In step 215, the processor 101 of the mobile device 100 will execute the specific file management operation To determine whether the sum of the data volume of the occupied entries exceeds a specific maximum data volume (that is, the data volume of the maximum entry limit), the specific maximum data volume is in different file systems, such as FAT/FAT32 /exFAT, can be designed as different values, and if the sum of the data volume is less than the size of the specific maximum data volume, the process will proceed to step 220B; otherwise, if the sum is greater than or equal to the specific maximum data volume size, then The process proceeds to step 220A.

It should be noted that in this embodiment, since a file may have a long file name and equivalently occupy the data size of multiple entries, the specific file management operation in this case is arranged to compare all files and sub-data The sum of the data volume occupied by the entries of the folder and the data volume of the maximum entry limit, that is, the comparison of the data volume of the entry, however, in another embodiment, the specific file management operation of this case can also be arranged to compare all The total number of entries of files and subfolders is compared with the maximum number of entries, that is, the number of entries is compared; this is also in line with the technical spirit of this case.

In step 220A, because the total amount of data of all entries occupied by all files and sub-data in the specific folder has been greater than or equal to the specified maximum data size, so the file management operation will report a failure message or information to the running On the specific application software on the mobile device 100 , the specific application software can display the failure message (that is, the failure or error message in the specific folder) on the screen to the user who controls the mobile device 100 .

In step 220B, the processor 101 of the mobile device 100 will run the specific file management operation to determine whether the sum of the data volume exceeds the specific maximum data volume minus a specific error-tolerant data volume (for example, the data volume size of 500 bytes, but is not limited), if the sum of the data exceeds the specific maximum data volume minus a specific error-tolerant data volume, then the flow proceeds to step 225A, otherwise, if the sum of the data does not exceed the If the amount of data is large, the process proceeds to step 225B.

In step 225A, the processor 101 of the mobile device 100 will run the specific file management operation to create a new file in the specific folder. Moreover, in step 225B, the mobile device 100 The processor 101 executes the specific file management operation to create a new file in the specific folder.

In step 230A, because the processor 101 of the mobile device 100 will run the specific file management operation to report the message or information that the available items in the specific folder are about to be full to the specific application, the specific application can be displayed on the screen A message or information that the available items are about to be full is displayed on the mobile device 100 to the user who controls the mobile device 100 .

In step 230B, the processor 101 of the mobile device 100 will run the specific file management operation to report a successful (OK) message or information to the specific application, and the specific application can display the successful message or information on the screen to the operator. The user of the mobile device 100 .

Through the comparison of the amount of data in step 215 and step 220B above, if the user wants to continuously write the contents of multiple files or multiple subfolders in a specific data, the mobile device 100 can report the contents of the specific folder earlier A message that the number of created files will exceed the limit will be sent to the user, so that the user can choose to create or write new files in other folders or their subfolders. Therefore, writing failure is less likely to occur.

It should be noted that the specific maximum data volume may be different in different file systems, such as FAT/FAT32/exFAT, for example, a maximum data volume defined in the FAT/FAT32 file system is equal to 0X200000 bytes , and a maximum amount of data defined in the exFAT file system is equal to 0X10000000 bytes, however, this is not the limitation of this case.

In another embodiment, the step of creating a new file in a specific folder can be exchanged with the step of judging whether all occupied entries exceed a specified maximum data size minus a fault-tolerant data size, for example Say, Fig. 3 shows the flow chart of other embodiment of this case. That is to say, when it is judged that the sum of the data volume is not greater than or equal to the specific maximum data volume value, the process will proceed to the step of creating a file in the specific folder first, and then judge whether to perform the step of early return; other For the detailed description of the steps, please refer to the above-mentioned step descriptions.

Furthermore, when the file management operation run by the processor 101 of the mobile device 100 reports a message or information that the entries occupied by the specific application in the folder are about to be full, the specific application can be arranged to display A prompt message is given to the user. For example, the screen shown in FIG. 4 can be displayed to the user. As shown in FIG. 4, the specific application displays a warning/prompt message on its screen 400 to give the user a reminder that the number of files and subfolders in a specific folder is about to be full, and the specific application The screen 400 of a specific application can be designed to include a message content and, for example, two buttons 401, 402. The message content is displayed in text to remind the user that the maximum number of files in the folder is about to be reached. In addition, sound can also be used to prompt user. Button 401 (ignore) is arranged to ignore the prompt message, if the user chooses to press button 401, the specific application will close the prompt screen 400, for example, button 402 (new folder) is arranged to create a data folder or create a new subfolder to create a file in the created data, if the user chooses to press the button 402, the specific application can open another folder for the user to choose which one The folder is used to store files, or the user can also create a new folder in this screen.

Furthermore, in other embodiments, if all occupied entries are about to reach the maximum number of entries, the file management operation executed by the processor 101 of the mobile device 100 can also automatically generate or create a new data folder or a new subfolder without and without providing a reminder/notification/warning message to the user; this can be done according to the user's settings for that particular application.

Furthermore, the size of the above-mentioned fault-tolerant data volume can be set or modified by the user. In addition, by properly determining the size of the fault-tolerant data, multiple files with large data capacity that are originally to be stored in a single folder can be separated and stored in multiple different folders or in multiple sub-folders Therefore, the mobile device 100 does not need to analyze too many files in a folder without waiting for a long time for data analysis and acquisition, so that the performance of the mobile device 100 can be greatly improved. In addition, as far as the mobile device in this case is concerned, it is to run a specific application to trigger file management The operation is to use the specifications of the Microsoft Windows file system to determine whether the folder directory that the user wants to access on the external storage device connected to the mobile device is about to reach the upper limit of the number of files.

The above descriptions are only preferred embodiments of the present invention, and all equivalent changes and modifications made according to the scope of the patent application of the present invention shall fall within the scope of the present invention.

100: Mobile Devices

101: Processor

102: Memory

130: Computer electronics

150: storage device

151: Flash memory controller

152: flash memory

Claims (6)

A method used in a mobile device, the mobile device adopts a mobile operating system and is used to externally connect to a storage device through a first communication interface, and the storage device is used to couple to a computer electronic device through a second communication interface, The computer electronic device adopts a computer operating system and is externally connected to the storage device, and the method includes: using a memory to store data of a specific application; and running the specific application to execute a file management of the mobile operating system Operation to perform: sending a file management command corresponding to the file management operation to a flash memory controller from the mobile device through the first communication interface of the storage device, and the file management operation is used in the storage device Create at least one file or at least one subfolder in a specific folder of a file system, and the file management command is used to control the flash memory controller to read a file entry corresponding to the specific folder table; an entry in the file entry comparison table of the specific folder is used to record a specific information of a specific number of bytes occupied by the entry, and the specific information includes a file or a file in the specific folder The name or extension of the subfolder; the first communication interface of the storage device is different from the second communication interface of the storage device; use the mobile device to receive the report corresponding to the flash memory controller the file entry comparison table of the specific folder of the storage device, the file entry comparison table is transmitted from the flash memory controller to the mobile operating system of the mobile device; using the mobile device to report the specific data from find a plurality of entries in the file entry comparison table of the specific folder to calculate the total amount of data occupied by the reported information of the plurality of entries in the file entry comparison table of the specific folder, wherein the plurality of entries are related to at least one file/and at least one sub-data in the specific folder; and using the mobile device to compare the total amount of data with a specific maximum amount of data in the specific Create a new file in the folder and determine whether to report a failure message or a success message to the specific application, wherein the specific application is used to display the failure message or the success message to a user. The method described in item 1 of the scope of the patent application, wherein the specific maximum amount of data is an upper limit of the maximum amount of data that can be used by the files and/or subfolders of the specific folder, and comparing the sum of the data amount with the The step of specifying the maximum data volume to decide to report the failure message or the success message to the specific application includes: judging whether the sum of the data volumes is greater than the maximum data volume upper limit; if the data volume sum is greater than the maximum data volume upper limit, then from the The file management operation reports the failure message to the specific application; if the sum of the data volume is less than the upper limit of the maximum data volume, it is judged whether the sum of the data volume is less than a second data volume value, and the second data volume value is equal to the maximum data volume an upper limit minus a fault-tolerant data volume value; if the sum of the data volumes is less than the second data volume value, use the file management operation to create the at least one file in the specific folder and report the success message to the specific application; and If the sum of the data volume is greater than the second data volume value, the file management operation is used to create the at least one file in the specific folder and return a message that the data volume is about to be full to the specific application. As for the method described in item 1 of the scope of the patent application, wherein the maximum amount of data is limited to be different in different file systems. A mobile device, the mobile device adopts a mobile operating system and is used to externally connect to a storage device through a first communication interface, and the storage device is used to couple to a storage device through a second communication interface A computer electronic device, the computer electronic device adopts a computer operating system and is externally connected to the storage device, and the mobile device includes: a memory for storing data of a specific application; and a processor coupled to the memory an object, for running the specific application and executing a file management operation of the mobile operating system to: send a file management command corresponding to the file management operation to a mobile device through the first communication interface of the storage device A flash memory controller, the file management operation is used to create at least one file or at least one subfolder in a specific folder of a file system of the storage device, and the file management command is used to control the flash The flash memory controller reads a file entry comparison table corresponding to the specific folder; an entry in the file entry comparison table of the specific folder is used to record a specific number of bytes occupied by the entry specific information, the specific information includes the file name or extension of a file or a subfolder in the specific folder; the first communication interface of the storage device is different from the second communication interface of the storage device ; using the mobile device to receive the file entry comparison table corresponding to the specific folder of the storage device reported by the flash memory controller, the file entry comparison table is sent from the flash memory controller to The mobile operating system of the mobile device; using the mobile device to find a plurality of entries from the reported file entry comparison table of the specific folder to calculate the reported file entry comparison table of the specific folder A sum of data volume occupied by information of the plurality of items, wherein the plurality of items are related to at least one file/and at least one sub-data in the specific folder; and using the mobile device to compare the sum of data volume with A specific maximum amount of data is used to create a new file in the specific folder and determine whether to report a failure message or a success message to the specific application, wherein the specific application is used to display the failure message or The success message is sent to a user. The mobile device as described in item 4 of the scope of the patent application, wherein the specific maximum amount of data is an upper limit of the maximum amount of data that can be used by the files and/or subfolders of the specific folder, and the processor runs the specific application To carry out: determine whether the sum of the data volume is greater than the maximum data volume upper limit; if the data volume sum is greater than the maximum data volume upper limit, then report the failure message from the file management operation to the specific application; if the data volume sum is less than the The maximum data volume upper limit, then judge whether the total data volume is less than a second data volume value, the second data volume value is equal to the maximum data volume upper limit minus a fault-tolerant data volume value; if the data volume sum is less than the second data volume value value, then use the file management operation to create the at least one file in the specific folder and report the success message to the specific application; and if the sum of the data volume is greater than the second data volume value, use the file management operation Create the at least one file in the specific folder and return a message about being full to the specific application. As for the mobile device described in item 4 of the scope of the patent application, the maximum amount of data is limited to be different in different file systems.

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