An extensible file system for signal processing software

The author describes the file system that was developed for the Entropic Signal Processing System (ESPS), a UNIX-based software package that supports speech and signal processing research and development. He discusses the major goals of the ESPS file system, namely, that it be efficient, that it fit well with UNIX, that it should maintain a history of parameters and processing steps, that users should be able to modify existing file types and introduce new types without having to rewrite existing programs, and that the file system should facilitate distributed computation on UNIX networks. He then describes the design and implementation of the ESPS file system with emphasis on the foregoing goals and on the use of modern software engineering techniques. He closes with a description of desirable additions and generalizations