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From: Rob Landley <landley@trommello.org>
To: CaT <cat@zip.com.au>, Larry McVoy <lm@work.bitmover.com>,
       linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Alright, I give up.  What does the "i" in "inode" stand for?
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 19:34:24 -0400
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On Friday 19 July 2002 12:45 am, CaT wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 18, 2002 at 09:38:57PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> > On Thu, Jul 18, 2002 at 06:33:54PM -0400, Rob Landley wrote:
> > > I've been sitting on this question for years, hoping I'd come
> > > across the answer, and I STILL don't know what the "i" is short for.
> > > Somebody here has got to know this. :)
> >
> > Incore node, I believe.  In the original Unix code there was dinode and
> > inode if I remember correctly, for disk node and incore node.
>
> That's a new one. I always thought it was 'information node' so in the
> above it'd be disk information node and just information node.
>
> Makes sense to me in any case. :)

So far I've also received off-list mails saying that it stands for "index" 
(this person cited "the design of the unix operating system", by Maurice J 
Bach, which I have on my shelf but don't remember that bit from), and another 
vote for "indirection" from somebody I recognize as being on this list longer 
than I have...

That's it, I'm going to go email Dennis Richie...

Rob
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