Methods and apparatus for storage and retrieval of name space information in a distributed computing system

A method performed by a remote processor in a distributed computing system for executing a processing task received from a first processor, said processing task operating on a first name space associated with said first processor, said first name space being formed by a plurality of name space modification commands, said remote processor having a second name space, said method comprising the steps of:

• processing a connection request from said first processor;
• allocating a process on said remote processor to execute said invoked processing task;
• receiving from said first processor the plurality of name space modification commands that form said first name space, said plurality of received name space modification commands including at least one dynamic name space modification command;
• establishing a communication link to said first processor;
• mounting said communication link to said first processor in a predefined place in said second name space;
• executing said plurality of received name space modification commands to modify said second name space;
• and
• executing said invoked processing task on said modified second name space.

A method for identifying a pathname associated with a given channel in a distributed computing system, said distributed computing system including a plurality of distributed resources, each of said resources being represented as a hierarchical file system comprised of one or more files, a collection of one or more hierarchical file systems forming a name space, each of said hierarchical file systems having a root directory, each of said channels representing a given file in said name space, each of said files having a filename comprised of an alphanumeric label, said pathname identifying said file by specifying a path through said hierarchical file system from said root directory to said file, said method comprising:

• associating a path data structure with each of said channels, said path data structure storing the filename of an associated file and a pointer to said path data structure associated with a parent file in said name space hierarchy;
• receiving an indication of the channel for which the pathname is to be identified;
• identifying the path data structure associated with said indicated channel;
• retrieving said filename and said pointer to said path data structure associated with the parent file from said identified path data structure;
• and
• following said retrieved pointer to said path data structure associated with the parent file and repeating said previous step until said root directory of said hierarchical file system is reached, each of said filenames retrieved from said path data structures appended to the front of said generated pathname associated data structures being appended to the front of said generated pathname associated with said indicated channel.