Patent ID: 8145724

Claim:
A method for providing information describing a file system connection between a local file system located on a local system and a host file system located on a host system, said method comprising: encoding a local system data structure comprising at least one tag representing the local file system; encoding a host system data structure comprising at least one tag representing the host file system; encoding a mapping data structure comprising at least one tag representing a mapping between a file in the local file system and a file in the host file system and a transfer type that defines a data format for transferring data between the host system and the local system to support remote editing of files in the host file system from the local file system, wherein the tags are in a metalanguage format, wherein each tag has an identifier and a set of one or more attributes, and wherein the encoded local system data structure, host system data structure, and mapping data structure form a file system connection descriptor; and using the file system connection descriptor to access the host file indicated in the mapping data structure by using the mapping data structure to determine a pattern describing a host file system type that maps to a local file system type, wherein the transfer type for the pattern defines how data is transferred between a host file of the host file system type having the determined pattern to the local file system in which the local file system type applies, wherein a first transfer type indicates to transfer one file unmodified between the host file system and the local file system, and wherein a second transfer type indicates to translate text in the file to transfer from the host file system to the local file system.