Patent ID: 8271558

Claim:
A non-transitory computer-accessible storage medium storing program instructions executable to: receive from an application a first request to open a first directory of a file 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 the location of the 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: create a new directory at a particular location within the hierarchical tree, wherein the new directory is specified by a new pathname indicating the particular location within the hierarchical tree; for each respective file of each directory of the group of directories, create a respective directory entry in the new directory to represent the respective file, wherein the respective file has a name, wherein the respective directory entry lists the name of the respective file in the new directory at the particular location within the hierarchical tree; and return to the application a reference to the new directory; wherein the program instructions are further executable to receive from the application a second request to open the first directory of the file system after said receiving the first request, and in response to the second request: determine that the new directory already exists; and return to the application a reference to the new directory; wherein the program instructions are further executable to receive from the application a third request to open the first directory of the file system after said receiving the second request, and in response to the third request: determine that the new directory already exists; determine whether any of the directories of the group of directories has a modification time newer than a modification time of the new directory; and in response to determining that at least one of the directories of the group of directories does have a modification time newer than the modification time of the new directory, re-create the new directory, wherein re-creating the new directory includes creating another new directory in the file system to replace the existing new directory and deleting the existing new directory from the file system.