Patent ID: 7107289

Claim:
In an operating system of a computer, a process file system for allowing a plurality of application programs to obtain information pertaining to a plurality of subsystems, at least two of said plurality of application programs being associated with two different personalities, comprising: a virtual process file system layer for interacting with said plurality of subsystems in a content-independent manner; a plurality of content-dependent modules, each of said plurality of subsystems being associated with at least one of said plurality of content-dependent modules, a first content-dependent module of said plurality of content-dependent modules being configured to obtain data from a first subsystem of said plurality of subsystems; a pre-defined interface facilitating data exchange between said plurality of content-dependent modules and said virtual process file system layer; a plurality of directory structure tables, each of said plurality of directory structure tables being associated with a given personality and containing names of at least a subset of said plurality of content-dependent modules, a name of said first content-dependent module being registered with at least one of said plurality of directory structure tables by said first content-dependent module upon initialization of said first content-dependent module, wherein at least two of said plurality of directory structure tables are associated with said two different personalities, wherein said plurality of content dependent modules, said pre-defined interface, and said plurality of directory structure tables enable said virtual process file system layer of said process file system to interact with said plurality of subsystems in said content-independent manner.