>On any decent filesystem st_ino should uniquely identify an object and
>reliably provide hardlink information. The UNIX world has relied upon
this
>for decades. A filesystem with st_ino collisions without being hardlinked
>(or the other way around) needs a fix.
But for at least the last of those decades, filesystems that could not do
that were not uncommon. They had to present 32 bit inode numbers and
either allowed more than 4G files or just didn't have the means of
assigning inode numbers with the proper uniqueness to files. And the sky
did not fall. I don't have an explanation why, but it makes it look to me
like there are worse things than not having total one-one correspondence
between inode numbers and files. Having a stat or mount fail because
inodes are too big, having fewer than 4G files, and waiting for the
filesystem to generate a suitable inode number might fall in that
category.
I fully agree that much effort should be put into making inode numbers
work the way POSIX demands, but I also know that that sometimes requires
more than just writing some code.
--
Bryan Henderson San Jose California
IBM Almaden Research Center Filesystems
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