TimeVault-FS A version-controlled file system with snapshots, metadata tracking, compression, locks, and search.

Table of Contents

• Features
• Installation
• Usage
• Commands
• Project Structure
• Feature Details
• Examples
• Contributing

Features

Core

• File operations: create, read, write, delete
• Journal logging for audit and rollback
• Snapshot system with delta storage
• Rollback using journal logs

Advanced

• Metadata tracking: creation time, modification time, size
• Search by name or content
• RLE compression
• File locking for write/delete protection
• Snapshot cleanup and retention

Interfaces

• CLI interface
• Optional Python GUI

Installation

Prerequisites

• GCC or Clang
• Python 3 (optional, for GUI)
• Make (optional)

Build

Windows

gcc -o my_fs.exe main.c file_manager.c journal_manager.c rollback_controller.c snapshot_manager.c metadata_manager.c search_manager.c compression_manager.c lock_manager.c

Linux/Mac

gcc -o my_fs main.c file_manager.c journal_manager.c rollback_controller.c snapshot_manager.c metadata_manager.c search_manager.c compression_manager.c lock_manager.c

Run

my_fs.exe
./my_fs
python fs_gui2.py

Usage

Start

my_fs.exe

Basic commands

create file.txt  
write file.txt hello  
read file.txt  
info file.txt  
snapshot file.txt  
help

Commands

File

• create <file>
• write <file> <data>
• read <file>
• delete <file>

Snapshots

• snapshot <file>
• restore <file>
• restore <snapshot>
• listsnapshots <file>
• cleanup-snapshots <file> N

Metadata

• info <file>
• list-files

Search

• search <pattern>
• grep <pattern>

Compression

• compress <file>
• decompress <file>

Locking

• lock <file>
• unlock <file>
• list-locks

System

• rollback
• help
• exit

Project Structure

TimeVault-FS/
  data/
    .metadata/
    .locks/
  snapshots/
  *.c, *.h source files
  fs_gui2.py
  README.md

Feature Details

Snapshots

• First snapshot stores full file
• Later snapshots store deltas
• Useful for append/update workflows

Metadata

• Tracks size, creation time, last modification time

Compression

• RLE encoding
• Compresses only when it reduces size

Locks

• Blocks writes and deletes until unlocked

Search

• Name-based search
• Content-based search

Examples

Workflow

create notes.txt
write notes.txt version1
snapshot notes.txt
write notes.txt version2
listsnapshots notes.txt
restore notes.txt

Compression

write log.txt aaaaaaaaaa
compress log.txt
decompress log.txt

Locking

lock config.txt
unlock config.txt

Snapshot cleanup

cleanup-snapshots file.txt 3

Troubleshooting

• Add <time.h> if time_t errors appear
• On Windows, use MinGW-w64 for dirent.h
• Compression only works on repetitive data

Academic Context Operating Systems course project covering file operations, versioning, compression, locking, and search.