Symbolic Link - Inode number

[jaiganeshmca]

Hello,

I don't have a Linux system right now. Can anyone tell me if i create a symbolic link to another file, will the inode number be the same for both the file or different inode number ? (this is an Interview question).

Any help would be much appreciated.

[jro]

That would be negative. Having identical inode numbers on the link and target would negate the original intention of index nodes. It could be argued, the that inode number essentially IS the file system object since it contains all the information the OS needs to interact with it.

To directly answer your question:

jrobbins@intra-svr[~]
[13:44]:touch aTargetFile

jrobbins@intra-svr[~]
[13:44]:ln -s aTargetFile aLinkFile

jrobbins@intra-svr[~]
[13:44]:stat aTargetFile aLinkFile
  File: `aTargetFile'
  Size: 0               Blocks: 0          IO Block: 4096   regular empty file
Device: 901h/2305d      Inode: 409686      Links: 1
Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--)  Uid: ( 1001/jrobbins)   Gid: (  100/   users)
Access: 2009-12-01 13:44:34.000000000 -0500
Modify: 2009-12-01 13:44:34.000000000 -0500
Change: 2009-12-01 13:44:34.000000000 -0500

  File: `aLinkFile' -> `aTargetFile'
  Size: 11              Blocks: 0          IO Block: 4096   symbolic link
Device: 901h/2305d      Inode: 409687      Links: 1
Access: (0777/lrwxrwxrwx)  Uid: ( 1001/jrobbins)   Gid: (  100/   users)
Access: 2009-12-01 13:44:56.000000000 -0500
Modify: 2009-12-01 13:44:45.000000000 -0500
Change: 2009-12-01 13:44:45.000000000 -0500

Yep, they have different inode numbers.

[hysterik]

Hello,

I don't have a Linux system right now. Can anyone tell me if i create a symbolic link to another file, will the inode number be the same for both the file or different inode number ? (this is an Interview question).

Any help would be much appreciated.

touch foo
ln -s foo bar
ls -i foo bar
6158 bar 6157 foo

They're different. Wikipedia and Google have some good information on why they are different. Now, if you're using hard links they'll have the same inode number.

[jro]

touch foo
ln -s foo bar
ls -i foo bar
6158 bar 6157 foo

They're different. Wikipedia and Google have some good information on why they are different. Now, if you're using hard links they'll have the same inode number.

Great comment! I use hard links so infrequently (read: never) that I forgot they would have the same inode number! Thanks hysterik

[deepaklo]

inode numbers will not be same if u create a symbolic link.It will same for Hard link.