Electronic musical instrument having secondary storage of files with common constituent portions identified by entry name

An electronic musical instrument comprising:

• a secondary storage device for storing a plurality of files each containing a group of data used or produced by the electronic musical instrument, the secondary storage device including:
• a file data storage section for storing constituent data portions that are formed by dividing the group of data in each of the plurality of files, the constituent data portions representing various functions or types of control data that are used by the electronic musical instrument, and each of the constituent data portions being identified by entry names,
• a file entry storage section for storing, for each file, a plurality of entry names identifying the constituent data portions constituting the group of data that forms each file of the plurality of files, and
• an entry management storage section for storing, for each entry name, a number of times that each constituent data portion is used by the plurality of files, the number of times being used to determine if particular constituent data portions should be written or stored in the file data storage section or deleted when none of the plurality of files uses the particular constituent data portions, such that only constituent data portions included in at least one of the plurality of files are stored in the file data storage section to thereby minimize the amount of storage space used in the secondary storage device;
• and
• file reading instruction generating means for generating a reading instruction to read a designated file;
• and
• a read control means for reading the entry names of the designated file from the entry storage section in response to the reading instruction, and for reading the constituent data portions corresponding to the respective entry names from the secondary storage device.

An electronic musical instrument comprising:

• a secondary storage device for storing a plurality of files each containing a group of data used or produced by the electronic musical instrument, the secondary storage device including:
• a file data storage section for storing constituent data portions that are formed by dividing the group of data in each of the plurality of files, the constituent data portions representing various functions or types of control data that are used by the electronic musical instrument, and each of the constituent data portions being identified by entry names,
• a file entry storage section for storing, for each file, a plurality of entry names identifying the constituent data portions constituting the group of data that forms each file of the plurality of files, and
• an entry management storage section for storing, for each entry name, a number of times that each constituent data portion is used by the plurality of files, the number of times being used to determine if particular constituent data portions should be written or stored in the file data storage section or deleted when none of the plurality of files uses the particular constituent data portions, such that only constituent data portions included in at least one of the plurality of files are stored in the file data storage section to thereby minimize the amount of storage space used in the secondary storage device;
• and
• a delete control means which operates, upon receipt of an instruction to delete a given file, to read the entry names of the given file from the entry storage section of the secondary storage device to decrease the corresponding number of times stored in the entry management section, and to delete a constituent data portion from the secondary storage device when the number of times for that constituent data portion becomes zero.

A secondary storage device for storing a plurality of files each containing a group of data used or produced by an electronic musical instrument, the secondary storage device comprising:

• a file data storage section for storing constituent data portions that are formed by dividing the group of data in each of the plurality of files, the constituent data portions representing various functions or types of control data that are used by the electronic musical instrument, and each of the constituent data portions being identified by entry names;
• a file entry storage section for storing, for each file, a plurality of entry names identifying the constituent data portions constituting the group of data that forms each file of the plurality of files;
• and
• an entry management storage section for storing, for each entry name, a number of times that each constituent data portion is used by the plurality of files, the number of times being used to determine if particular constituent data portions should be written or stored in the file data storage section or deleted when none of the plurality of files uses the particular constituent data portions, such that only constituent data portions included in at least one of the plurality of files are stored in the file data storage section to thereby minimize the amount of storage space used in the secondary storage device.

A method of storing information in a secondary storage device for an electronic musical instrument, the method comprising the steps of:

• dividing the information into a plurality of constituent data portions, the constituent data portions representing various functions or types of control data that are used by the electronic musical instrument;
• identifying each constituent data portion with an entry name;
• storing the information in the secondary storage device as a file among a plurality of files, the file being formed as a list of entry names identifying the corresponding constituent data portions that make up the information;
• storing a number of times each constituent data portion is used in the plurality of files that are stored in the secondary storage device;
• and
• deleting all constituent data portions from the secondary storage device that are not contained in any of the plurality of files stored in the secondary storage device.