I'm developing a data logging application for a device. I'm wondering if there's some standard that says where to put any application's directories and files, or one is free to choose one. I saw that digital cameras tend to use a DCIM dir, but I don't know if that's a convention or a standard. Thanks
Standards are such a fine thing that everybody has his own standards...
-- Uwe Bonnes bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de Institut fuer Kernphysik Schlossgartenstrasse 9 64289 Darmstadt --------- Tel. 06151 162516 -------- Fax. 06151 164321 ----------
There's a "standard" for digital cameras (DPOF) that allows the user to select pictures for printing on the camera's user interface and have this information automatically picked up by printers with card slots. If you're not generating image files, then this is of no interest to you and you can put your files wherever you like.
Just one thing: if your application is going to generate an arbitrary number of files (vs. one single large logfile), you should put these files in a subdirectory, not in the root. The reason for this is that flash media are usually FAT12 or FAT16, and both these formats have a fixed root directory size (usually 511 entries).
I think the only reason that a sub-dir is used is because the number of files that one my store in a FAT root dir is limited. The number
112 comes to mind, but that is for FAT-12 if I recall correctly.Regards Anton Erasmus
Note that this limit only applies to FAT12 and FAT16, where the root directory is a special unique structure living between the FAT and the data area. FAT32 implements the root directory as any other directory; it has an allocation chain and can be extended to any desired size.
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