Editing AmigaDOS (section)

==Volume naming conventions==
Partitions and physical drives are typically referred to as ''DF0:'' (floppy drive 0), ''DH0:'' (hard drive 0), etc.  However, unlike many operating systems, outside of built-in physical hardware devices like ''DF0:'' or ''HD0:'', the names of the single disks, volumes and partitions are totally arbitrary: for example a hard disk partition could be named ''Work'' or ''System'', or anything else at the time of its creation. Volume names can be used in place of the corresponding device names, so a disk partition on device ''DH0:'' called ''Workbench'' could be accessed either with the name ''DH0:'' or ''Workbench:''. Users must indicate to the system that "''Workbench''" is the volume "''Workbench:''" by always typing the colon "'':''" when they are entering information in a requester form or into AmigaShell.

If an accessed volume name cannot be found, the operating system will prompt the user to insert the disk with the given volume name, or allow the user to cancel the operation.

In addition, logical device names can be set with the "assign" command to any directory or device; programs often assigned a virtual volume name to their installation directory (for instance, a fictional word processor called ''Writer'' might assign ''Writer:'' to ''DH0:Productivity/Writer''). This allows for easy relocation of installed programs. The default name ''SYS:'' is used to refer to the volume that the system was booted from. Various other default names are provided to refer to important system locations. e.g. ''S:'' for startup scripts, ''C:'' for AmigaDOS commands, ''FONTS:'' for installed fonts, etc.

Assignment of volume labels can also be set on multiple directories, which will be treated as a union of their contents. For example, ''FONTS:'' might be assigned to ''SYS:Fonts'', then extended to include, for example, ''Work:UserFonts'' using the ''add'' option of the AmigaDos ''assign'' command. The system would then permit use of fonts installed in either directory. Listing ''FONTS:'' would show the files from both locations.