Patent ID: 8667033

Claim:
A method of managing file system objects in a database system, comprising: creating a persistent record in a persistent file system object table of an intention to perform an intended action on a physical file system object in said database system in advance of performing the action, wherein a create intention remembers a file system object which has been created during a user transaction that might abort which will need to be deleted later, a delete intention remembers that a file object was deleted by a transaction and that the file system object needs to be reliably and physically removed after the transaction commits, and said record indicating a state of said physical file system object, wherein said creating comprises writing said record to the persistent file system object table, and performing a careful write of said table to durable storage in advance of performing said action to preserve the persistent record for later use; updating the indicated state of said physical file system object in said table when the state of said physical file system object changes, wherein upon initiation of a create transaction action to create a file system object, writing an intention record having a create pending state to said table, and, upon said create transaction committing, updating said create pending state in said table to a created state, and upon a drop transaction subsequently committing, writing another intention record having a drop pending state to said table; and upon a database crash, using said table to identify said physical file system object and to determine whether the intended action was completed on said physical file system object.