There are many other aspects to an operating system, such as how it manages security of data and interaction with the user. However, even these few observations should make it apparent that the data model of an operating system is rather different from the data model of a programming language. Another type of data model is found in text editors. Every text editor’s data Text editors model incorporates a notion of text strings and editing operations on text. The data model usually includes the notion of lines, which, like most files, are character strings. However, unlike files, lines may have associated line numbers. Lines may also be organized into larger units such as paragraphs, and operations on lines are normally applicable anywhere within the line — not just at the front, like the most common file operations. The typical editor supports a notion of a “current” line (where the cursor is) and probably a current position within that line.

 

Operations performed by the editor include various modifications to lines, such as deletion or insertion of characters within the line, deletion of lines, and creation of new lines. It is also possible in typical editors to search for features, such as specific character strings, among the lines of the file being edited. In fact, if you examine any other familiar piece of software, such as a spread- sheet or a video game, a pattern emerges.

 

Each program that is designed to be used by others has its own data model, within which the user must work. The data models we meet are often radically different from one another, both in the primitives they use to represent data and in the operations on that data that are offered to the user. Yet each data model is implemented, via data structures and the programs that use them, in some programming language.

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