Does flickr or myspace make a new directory for every user?

ie. - http://www.flickr.com/photos/randomuser

ie. - http://www.myspace.com/randomuser

Do they make a new directory for every user? Surely they don't. How do they do this.

Does flickr or myspace make a new directory for every user?

I would bet they use a technique called URL Rewrite or URL Rewriting

Does flickr or myspace make a new directory for every user?

The Web Server can run the same script, no matter what URI is provided. Then the script can evaluate the URI, and see what "directory" the user was looking for. Then the script can use that to pull from a database. No need to store directories or files in a file system; it can all be in a database.