Patent ID: 8209295

Claim:
A method for storing information in a data processing system, the method comprising: providing a knowledge base for a file system manager, the file system manager being adapted to organize a plurality of real files on a mass memory of the data processing system and the knowledge base defining knowledge comprising a set of concepts, a set of relations among the concepts, and a set of relations of inclusion describing each real file individually as an instance of at least one concept according to a predefined ontology; detecting a command for the file system manager for accessing a set of selected instances; identifying a set of selected real files described by the selected instances according to the knowledge; accessing the selected real files on the mass memory; incorporating at least one additional concept into the set of concepts; applying at least one predefined logical inference rule to the at least one additional concept to identify one or more implicit relations between the at least one additional concept and one or more real files stored on the mass memory, the application of the at least one predefined logical inference rule resulting in an expansion of the knowledge base to include further knowledge, the further knowledge comprising the at least one additional concept, at least one relation between the at least one additional concept and one or more concepts in the set of concepts, and at least one relation of inclusion that additionally describes the one or more real files as instances of the at least one additional concept; identifying a further set of selected files according to the further knowledge; accessing the further selected files on the mass memory; detecting a further command for the file system manager for manipulating a set of further selected instances; determining whether an update to the knowledge according to the further command is logically consistent with each relation in the set of relations among the concepts; on the condition that the update is logically consistent with the set of relations among the concepts, updating the knowledge according to the further command; and on the condition that the update is logically inconsistent with at least one relation in the set of relations among the concepts, providing a warning to a user of the file system manager of the logical inconsistency and providing the user with a capability to perform at least one of the following actions: aborting the update to the knowledge in response to the warning, and overriding the warning and proceeding with the update to the knowledge, the update further comprising removing each relation in the set of relations among the concepts that is logically inconsistent with the update.