ANDROID FILE SYSTEMS
Exploring the file system:
1. Two ways to access the file system in android.
a. Via Eclipse
b. Via Command Line
Via Eclipse -- Go to Window → Show View → Other → Android → File Explorer
Via command Line – adb shell – Facilitates to browse the files of android.
1. The system partition
2. The SD card partition
3. The user data partition
System Partition
• Entire Android Operating System is located in the system
partition.
• This is the main partition that contains all preinstalled apps,
libraries, Android Framework, Linux command line tools etc.,
• This is a read only partition where the developer cannot be
given access to it.
• The System partition corresponds to the file called
system.img file
SDCard Partition
1. Is a mass storage area
2. User apps can read files from this partition and write files to this
partition.
3. Photos, Music, Videos and Similar items can be stored in this area
4. This is available at mnt/sdcard location
5. SD card partition is important for the developer which facilitates to
store the files in it
6. Not very structured partition
7. This partition corresponds to sdcard.img in Android Virtual Device
Directory (AVD)
The User Data Partition
• This is the most important partition
• This stores the following
1. All the user data
2. All the downloaded applications
3. All the applications’ data (preinstalled app data + downloaded app data)
4. Stored in /data/app folder
5. Inside the data/data folder, there will be folders corresponding to each
apps will be available
6. The user data partition typically corresponds to user.data img in the AVD