Patent ID: 8812567

Claim:
A non-transitory computer-accessible storage medium storing program instructions executable by one or more processors to perform operations including: receiving from an application a first request to open a first directory of a file system of a computer system, wherein the first directory is a particular directory in a hierarchical tree of directories of the file system, wherein each respective directory of the hierarchical tree is specified by a respective pathname indicating a location of the respective directory within the hierarchical tree, wherein the first request indicates the pathname of the first directory, wherein the first directory is a directory of a group of directories including the first directory and one or more other directories of the hierarchical tree; in response to the first request: determining if a new directory has already been created in response to a previous request to open the first directory; if the new directory has not been created: creating the new directory at a new location within the hierarchical tree, wherein the new directory is specified by a new pathname indicating the new location within the hierarchical tree, wherein said creating the new directory comprises modifying file system information stored on one or more storage devices, wherein the file system information specifies the hierarchical tree of directories; for each respective file of each directory of the group of directories, creating a respective directory entry in the new directory to represent the respective file, wherein the respective file is designated by a corresponding file name and includes corresponding file contents, wherein the respective directory entry lists the corresponding file name of the respective file in the new directory at the new location within the hierarchical tree, wherein the respective directory entry is created without copying the corresponding file contents of the respective file, and wherein the respective directory entry is stored in the file system; and returning to the application a reference to the new directory, wherein the reference to the new directory is usable by the application to obtain a listing of files corresponding to one or more files in the first directory and the one or more other directories; and if the new directory has already been created: returning to the application the reference to the new directory.