Virtual File System

The virtual file system, or VFS, is an abstraction that allows applications to access different types of file systems in a consistent fashion. This allows uniform access to files in the local file system, ftp sites, RPM packages, and compressed archives. It is currently undergoing a rewrite.

The GNU Midnight Commander file manager uses the VFS to provide the user with a consistent way to access files regardless of their location.

In the future, applications will be able to use a VFS library to be able to access files in any location in the same way that the file manager does. They will also have access to high-level operations like copy file or copy directory recursively at the VFS level.