File sequence

In computing, as well as in non-computing contexts, a file sequence is a well-ordered, (finite) collection of files, usually related to each other in some way.

In computing, file sequences should ideally obey some kind of locality of reference principle, so that not only all the files belonging to the same sequence ought to be locally referenced to each other, but they also obey that as much as is their proximity with respect to the ordering relation. Explicit file sequences are, in fact, sequences whose filenames all end with a numeric or alphanumeric tag in the end (excluding file extension).

The aforementioned locality of reference usually pertains either to the data, the metadata (e.g. their filenames or last-access dates), or the physical proximity within the storage media they reside in. In the latter acception it is better to speak about file contiguity (see below).

Every GUI program shows contents of folders by usually ordering its files according to some criteria, mostly related to the files' metadata, like the filename. The criterion is, by default, the alphanumeric ordering of filenames, although some operating systems do that in "smarter" ways than others: for example file1.ext should ideally be placed before file10.ext, like GNOME Files and Thunar do, whereas, alphanumerically, it comes after (more on that later). Other criteria exist, like ordering files by their file type (or by their extension) and, if the same type, by either filename or last-access date, and so on.

For this reason, when a file sequence has a more strong locality of reference, particularly when it is related to their actual contents, it is better to highlight this fact by letting their well-ordering induce an alphanumeric ordering of the filenames too. That is the case of explicit file sequences.

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