Feudalnate, thanks for taking the time for an amazing response. That is everything I need and more. I was aware of the source for xbmc and had a jump around the file system code, but there was a lot of abstraction and boiler plate code, so it was taking some time to figure out what was what- so I'm very glad I asked here in the same time. I'll have a deeper look at your post after work and will probably play around with it tonight.
As for my intentions, i don't have much at the minute. I am just getting used to the system for now. I had started making a very basic rendering engine, and as a mini project to get some functionality going i was just making a temporary dashboard project. At the minute this only consists of a rotating replicated tiled xbox sphere, but I needed access to the filesystem to display any useful information.
I'll definitely be recording down the above in my notes for future reference.
Thanks again! Appreciate it