From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] FS question From: Sape Mullender In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 12:49:16 -0500 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 85883434-eacc-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 >> Why was putting the name in the metat good in 1987 but bad >> in 1969? > > I don't think it was bad in 1969. I think it just didn't > happen that way. Indeed. In 1969, directory entries consisted of a (14 character) name and a (16 bit) inode number. Multiple directory entries could refer to the same inode: links. Inodes had a reference-count that kept track of the number of directories pointing to an inode. (the command ncheck would check/fix these counts). Symbolic links came much later (in BSD if I remember correctly) and, in early symbolic links, a single data block would be sacrificed for storing the name linked to. The name was still not in the inode metadata.