In a book about Encase, there are the following two sentences, which I thought might be contradictory. What do you think?
1. A directory entry in a FAT file system has no logical size.
2. Each directory entry in a FAT file system is 32 bytes in length.
If a directory entry is 32 bytes in length, it means it takes up a space of 32 bytes. So, What exactly do these sentences mean? How can a piece of data takes up a physical space of 32 byte but referred to having a size of 0 bytes?
Thanks.
On a FAT32 system, the 32 byte directory entry gives the length of a file (max 32 bits, or 4GB). However, the pointer to a directory does not have a length, always set to 0. Thus what Encase is saying is correct.
A FAT directory will always be allocated in clusters,so a single entry will actually occupy at least one cluster, typically 8K or 16K. A sub directory also always starts with 2 entries, a . and .. entry pointint to itself, and the parent directory
The program has to calculate the directory length from the FAT.