Some systems implement file sharing by allowing several users to read a single copy of a file simultaneously. Others provide a copy of the shared file to each user. Discuss the relative merits of each approach.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

This depends somewhat on the nature of the file and the application. If the file contains
only nonmodifiable procedures or data, then sharing a single copy is straightforward (at
least compared to sharing modifiable files). If the files are modifiable, then the sharing
scheme may depend somewhat on the application. It could be that a single copy of the file
needs to be updated by several users, in which case they should share the single copy of the
file and their accesses should use concurrency control. Or each user might take a separate
copy of the file and use it for its own purposes, in which case separate copies might be made;
but this of course demands that the “master copy” of the file be preserved and kept up to
date properly for future users.